m  m 

m 


LITEKATUBE  &  DOGMA 

AN  ESSAY 

TOWAEDS  A  BETTEE  APPEEHENSION 
OF  THE  BIBLE 


BY 

MATTHEW  AENOLD 
t\. 


gorfc 
MACMILLAN  AND    CO. 

1883 


"  0  guam'  mdgn'a  multilua'o  dukedinis  Tuce,  Domine,  quam  abscondisti 
timentibus  Te  !"  PSALM  xxxi.  (xxx.  in  Vulgate)  19. 

"La  tendance  a  Vordre  tie  peut-elle  faire  une  partie  essentielle  de  nos 
inclinations,  de  notre  instinct,  comme  la  tendance  a  la  conservation,  a  la 
reproduction  ?  "  SENANCOUR. 

"  And  as  it  is  owned  the  whole  scheme  of  Scripture  is  not  yet  under- 
stood, so,  if  it  ever  comes  to  be  understood,  it  must  be  in  the  same  way 
as  natural  knowledge  is  come  at:  by  the  continuance  and  progress  of 
learning  and  of  liberty,  and  by  particular  persons  attending  to,  comparing, 
and  pursuing  intimations  scattered  up  and  down  it,  which  are  overlooked 
and  disregarded  by  the  generality  of  the  world.  Nor  is  it  at  all  incredible 
that  a  book  which  has  been  so  long  in  the  possession  of  mankind  should 
contain  many  truths  as  yet  undiscovered.  For  all  the  same  phenomena 
and  the  same  faculties  of  investigation,  from  which  such  great  discoveries 
in  natural  knowledge  have  been  made  in  the  present  and  last  age,  were 
equally  in  the  possession  of  mankind  several  thousand  years  before." 

BUTLER. 

"  If  a  great  change  is  to  be  made,  the  minds  of  men  will  be  fitted  to  it, 
the  general  opinions  and  feelings  will  draw  that  way.  Every  fear,  every 
hope,  will  forward  it  ;  and  then  they,  who  persist  in  opposing  this  mighty 
current,  will  appear  rather  to  resist  the  decrees  of  Providence  itself,  than 
the  mere  designs  of  men.  They  will  not  be  resolute  and  firm,  but  perverse 
and  obstinate." 

7 


(-• 


PEE  FACE. 

AN  inevitable  revolution,  of  which  we  all  recognise 
the  beginnings  and  signs,  but  which  has  already  spread,  v 
perhaps,  farther  than  most  of  us  think,  is  befalling  the 
religion  in  which  we  have  been  brought  up.  In  those 
countries  where  religion  has  been  most  loved,  this 
revolution  will  be  felt  the  most  keenly  ;  felt  through 
all  its  stages  and  in  all  its  incidents.  In  no  country 
will  it  be  more  felt  than  in  England.  This  cannot  be 
otherwise.  It  cannot  be  but  that  the  revolution  should 
come,  and  that  it  should  be  here  felt  passionately, 
profoundly,  painfully ;  but  no  one  is  on  that  account 
in  the  least  dispensed  from  the  utmost  duty  of  con- 
siderateness  'and  caution.  There  is  no  surer  proof 
of  a  narrow  and  ill-instructed  mind  than  to  think 
and  uphold  that  what  a  man  takes  to  be  the  truth  on 
religious  matters  is  always  to  be  proclaimed.  Our 
truth  on  these  matters,  and  likewise  the  error  of 
others,  is  something  so  relative  that  the  good  or  harm 
likely  to  be  done  by  speaking  ought  always  to  be 
taken  into  account.  "  I  keep  silence  at  many  things," 
says  Goethe,  "for  I  would  not  mislead  men,  and  am 
well  content  if  others  can  find  satisfaction  in  what 
gives  me  offence,"  The  man  who  believes  that  his 


851 151 


VI  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

truth  on  religious  matters  is  so  absolutely  the  truth, 
that  say  it  when,  and  where,  and  to  whom  he  will, 
he  cannot  but  do  good  with  it,  is  in  our  day  almost 
always  a  man  whose  truth  is  half  blunder,  and  wholly 
useless. 

To  be  convinced,  therefore,  that  our  current  theology 
is  false,  is  not  necessarily  a  reason  for  publishing  that 
conviction.  The  theology  may  be  false,  and  yet  one 
may  do  more  harm  in  attacking  it  than  by  keeping 
silence  and  waiting.  To  judge  rightly  the  time  and 
its  conditions  is  the  great  thing ;  there  is  a  time,  as 
the  Preacher  says,  to  speak,  and  a  time  to  keep  silence. 
If  the  present  time  is  a  time  to  speak,  there  must  be 
a  reason  why  it  is  so. 

And  there  is  a  reason  ;  and  it  is  this.  Clergymen 
and  ministers  of  religion  are  full  of  lamentations  over 
what  they  call  the  spread  of  scepticism,  and  because 
of  the  little  hold  which  religion  now  has  on  the  masses 
of  the  people, — the  lapsed  masses,  as  some  call  them. 
Practical  hold  on  them  it  never,  perhaps,  had  very 
much,  but  they  did  not  question  its  truth,  and  they 
held  it  in  considerable  awe.  As  the  best  of  them 
raised  themselves  up  out  of  a  merely  animal  life, 
religion  attracted  and  engaged  them.  But  now  they 
seem  to  have  hardly  any  awe  of  it  at  all,  and  they 
freely  question  its  truth.  And  many  of  the  most 
successful,  energetic,  and  ingenious  of  the  artisan  class, 
who  are  steady  and  rise,  are  now  found  either  of 
themselves  rejecting  the  Bible  altogether,  or  following 
teachers  who  tell  them  the  Bible  is  an  exploded 
superstition.  Let  me  quote  from  the  letter  of  a 


PEEFACE.  Vll 

working-man, — a  man  himself  of  no  common  intelli- 
gence and  temper, — a  passage  that  sets  this  forth  very 
clearly.  "  Despite  the  efforts^  tha  churches/'  he_ 
says,  "the  speculations  of  the  day  are  working  their 
way  down  among  inT  people,  many  of  whom  are 
"asiJnirfbTthe  reason  and  autlwrity  for  the  things  they 
have  been  taught  to  believe.  Questions  of  this  kind, 
too,  mostly  reach  them  through  doubtful  channels ; 
and  owing  to  this,  and  to  their  lack  of  culture,  a 
discovery  of  imperfection  and  fallibility  in  the  Bible 
leads  to  its  contemptuous  rejection  as  a  great  priestly 
imposture.  And  thus  those  among  the  working  class 
who  eschew  the  teachings  of  the  orthodox,  slide  off 
towards,  not  the  late  Mr.  Maurice,  nor  yet  Professor 
Huxley,  but  towards  Mr.  Bradlaugh." 

Despite  the  efforts  of  the  churches,  the  writer  tells  us, 
this  contemptuous  rejection  of  the  Bible  happens. 
And  we  regret  the  rejection  as  much  as  the  clergy  and 
ministers  of  religion  do.  There  may  be  others  who  do 
not  regret  it,  but  we  do.  All  that  the  churches  can 
say  about  the  importance  of  the  Bible  andjts_religion 
we  concur  in.  And  it  is  the  religion  of  the  Bible  that 
is  professedly  in  question  with  all  the  churches  when 
they  talk  of  religion  and  lament  its  prospects.  With 
Cathoh'cs  as  well  as  Protestants,  and  with  all  the  sects 
of  Protestantism,  this  is  so ;  and  from  the  nature  of 
the  case  it  must  be  so.  What  the  religion  of  the 
Bible  is,  how  it  is  to  be  got  at,  they  may  not  agree  ; 
but  that  it  is  the  religion  of  the  Bible  for  which  they 
contend  they  all  aver.  "  The  Bible,"  says  Dr.  Newman, 
"  is  the  record  of  the  whole  revealed  faith  ;  so  far  all 


/ 


Vlll  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

parties  agree."  Now,  this  religion  of  the  Bible  we 
say  they  cannot  value  more  than  we  do.  If  we  hesitate 
to  adopt  strictly  their  language  about  its  ^/-importance, 
that  is  only  because  we  take  an  uncommonly  large 
view  of  human  perfection,  and  say,  speaking  strictly, 
that  there  go  to  this  certain  things, — art,  for  instance, 
and  science,  which  the  Bible  hardly  meddles  with. 
The  difference  between  us  and  them,  however,  is  more 
a  difference  of  theoretical  statement  than  of  practical 
conclusion.  Speaking  practically,  and  looking  at  the 
very  large  part  of  human  life  engaged  by  the  Bible, 
at  the  comparatively  small  part  unengaged  by  it,  we 
are  quite  willing,  like  the  churches,  to  call  the  Bible 
and  its  religion  ^//-important. 

All  this  agreement  there  is,  both  in  words  and  in 
things,  between  us  and  the  churches.    And  yet,  when 
we  behold  the  clergy  and  ministers  of  religion  lament 
/  the  neglect  of  religion  and  aspire  to  restore  it,  how 
V  must  we  feel  that  to  restore  religion  as  they  under- 
/stand  it,  to  re-inthrone  the  Bible  as  explained  by  our 
I  current  theology,  whether  learned  or  popular,  is  ab- 
\olutely  and  for  ever  impossible  ! — as  impossible  as  to 
restore  the  feudal  system,  or  the  belief  in  witches. 
Let  us  admit  that  the  Bible  cannot  possibly  die  ;  but 
then  the  churches  cannot  even  conceive  the  Bible  with- 
out the  gloss  they  at  present  put  upon  it,  and  this  gloss, 
as  certainly,  cannot  possibly  live.     And  it  is  not  a 
gloss  which  one  church  or  one  sect  puts  upon  the 
Bible  and  another  does  not  j  it  is  the  gloss  they  all 
put  upon  it,  and  call  the  substratum  of  belief  common 
to  all  Christian  churches,   and  largely  shared  with 


PREFACE.  IX 

them,  even  by  natural  religion.  It  is  this  so-called 
axiomatic  basis  which  must  go,  and  it  supports  all  the 
rest  If  the  Bible  were  really  inseparable  from  this 
and  depended  upon  it,  then  Mr.  Bradlaugh  would 
have  his  way  and  the  Bible  would  go  too  ;  since  this 
basis  is  inevitably  doomed.  For  whatever  is  to  stand  , 
must  rest  upon  something  which  is  verifiable,  not  un-'~~ 
verifiable.  Now,  the  assumption  with  which  all  the 
churches  and  sects  set  out,  that  there  is  "a  Great 
Personal  First  Cause,  the  moral  and  intelligent 
Governor  of  the  universe,"  and  that  from  him  the 
Bible  derives  its  authority,  cannot  at  present,  at  any 
rate,  be  verified. 

Those  who  "  ask  for  the  reason  and  authority  for 
the  things  they  have  been  taught  to  believe,"  as  the 
people,  we  are  told,  are  now  doing,  will  begin  at  the 
beginning.  Eude  and  hard  reasoners  as  they  are, 
they  will  never  consent  to  admit,  as  a  self-evident 
axiom,  the  preliminary  assumption  with  which  the 
churches  start.  But  this  preliminary  assumption 
governs  everything  which  in  our  current  theology 
follows  it ;  and  it  is  certain,  therefore,  that  the  people 
will  not  receive  our  current  theology.  So,  if  they  are 
to  receive  the  Bible,  we  must  find  for  the  Bible  some* 
other  basis  than  that  which  the  churches  assign  to  it, 
a  verifiable  basis  and  not  an  assumption ;  and  this, 
again,  will  govern  everything  which  comes  after.  This 
new  religion  of  the  Bible  the  people  may  receive ;  the 
version  now  current  of  the  religion  of  the  Bible  they 
never  will  receive. 

Here,  then,  is  the  problem  :  to  find,  for  the  Bible, 


X  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

(  a  basis  in  something  which  can  be  verified,  instead  of 
)  in  something  which  has  to  be  assumed.  So  true  and 
prophetic  are  Vinet's  words :  "  We  must"  he  said, 
"  make  it  our  business  to  bring  forward  the  rational 
side  of  Christianity,  and  to  show  that  for  thinkers, 
too,  it  has  a  right  to  be  an  authority."  Yes,  and  the 
problem  we  have  stated  must  be  the  first  stage  in  the 
business.  With  this  unsolved,  all  other  religious  dis- 
cussion is  idle  trifling. 

./^  This  is  why  Dissent,  as  a  religious  movement  of 
^  our  day,  would  be  almost  droll,  if  it  were  not,  from 
"~""^>  the  tempers  and  actions  it  excites,  so  extremely  irre- 
£ — ligious.  But  what  is  to  be  said  for  men,  aspiring  to 
deal  with  the  cause  of  religion,  who  either  cannot  see 
that  what  the  people  now  require  is  a  religion  of  the 
Bible  quite  different  from  that  which  any  of  the 
churches  or  sects  supply  \  or  who,  seeing  this,  spend 
their  energies  in  fiercely  battling  as  to  whether  the 
Church  should  be  a  national  institution  or  no  1  The 
question,  at  the  present  juncture,  is  in  itself  so 
absolutely  unimportant !  The  thing  is,  to  recast 
religion.  If  this  is  done,  the  new  religion  will  be  the 
national  one ;  if  it  is  not  done,  separating  the  nation, 
in  its  collective  and  corporate  character,  from  religion, 
will  not  do  it.  It  is  as  if  men's  minds  were  much 
unsettled  about  mineralogy,  and  the  teachers  of  it 
were  at  variance,  and  no  teacher  was  convincing,  and 
many  people,  therefore,  were  disposed  to  throw  the 
study  of  mineralogy  overboard  altogether.  What 
would  naturally  be  the  first  business  for  every  friend 
of  the  study?  Surely,  to  establish  on  safe  grounds 


PKEFACE.  XI 

the  value  of  the  study,  and  to  put  its  claims  in  a  new 
light  where  they  could  no  longer  be  denied.  But  if 
he  acted  as  our  Dissenters  act  in  religion,  what  would 
he  do  1  Give  himself,  heart  and  soul,  to  a  furious 
crusade  against  keeping  the  Government  School  of 
Mines ! 

Meanwhile,  however,  there  is  now  an  end  to  all 
fear  of  doing  harm  by  gainsaying  the  received  theology 
of  the  churches  and  sects.  For  this  theology  is  itself 
now  a  hindrance  to  the  Bible  rather  than  a  help. 
Nay,  to  abandon  it,  to  put  some  other  construction 
on  the  Bible  than  this  theology  puts,  to  find  some 
other  basis  for  the  Bible  than  this  theology  finds,  is 
indispensable,  if  we  would  have  the  Bible  reach  the 
people.  And  this  is  the  aim  of  the  following  essay  : 
to  show  that,  when  we  come  to  put  the  right  construc- 
tion on  the  Bible,  we  give  to  the  Bible  a  real  experi- 
mental basis,  and  keep  on  this  basis  throughout ; 
instead  of  any  basis  of  unverifiable  assumption  to 
start  with,  followed  by  a  string  of  other  unverifiable 
assumptions  of  the  like  kind,  such  as  the  received 
theology  necessitates. 

And  this  aim  we  cannot  seek  without  coming  in 
sight  of  another  aim,  too,  which  we  have  often  and 
often  pointed  out,  and  tried  to  recommend  :  culture, 
the  acquainting  ourselves  with  the  best  that  has  been 
known  and  said  in  the  world,  and  thus  with  the 
history  of  the  human  spirit.  One  cannot  go  far  in 
the  attempt  to  bring  in,  for  the  Bible,  a  right  con- 
struction, without  seeing  how  necessary  is  something 
of  culture  to  its  being  admitted  and  used.  The  cor- 


Xli  LITEEATUEE  AND  DOGMA. 

respondent  we  have  above  quoted  notices  how  the 
lack  of  culture  disposes  people  to  conclude  at  once, 
from  any  imperfection  or  fallibility  in  the  Bible,  that 
it  is  a  priestly  imposture.  To  a  certain  extent,  this 
is  the  fault  not  of  people's  want  of  culture,  but  of  the 
priests  and  theologians  themselves,  who  for  centuries 
have  kept  assuring  men  that  perfect  and  infallible  the 
Bible  is.  Still,  even  without  this  confusion  added  by 
his  theological  instructors,  the  homo  unius  libri,  the 
man  of  no  range  in  his  reading,  must  almost  inevitably 
misunderstand  the  Bible,  cannot  treat  it  largely 
enough,  must  be  inclined  to  treat  it  all  alike,  and  to 
press  every  word. 

For,  on  the  one  hand,  he  has  not  enough  experience 
of  the  way  in  which  men  have  thought  and  spoken, 
to  feel  what  the  Bible -writers  are  about;  to  read 
between  the  lines,  to  discern  where  he  ought  to  rest 
with  his,  whole  weight,  and  where  he  ought  to  pass 
lightly.  On  the  other  hand,  the  void  and  hunger  in 
his  mind,  from  want  of  aliment,  almost  irresistibly 
impels  him  to  fill  it  by  taking  literally  and  amplifying 
certain  data  which  he  finds  in  the  Bible,  whether  they 
ought  to  be  so  dealt  with  or  no.  Our  mechanical  and 
materialising  theology,  with  its  insane  licence  of 
affirmation  about  God,  its  insane  licence  of  affirmation 
about  a  future  state,  is  really  the  result  of  the  poverty 
and  inanition  of  our  minds.  It  is  because  we  cannot 
trace  God  in  history  that  we  stay  the  craving  of  our 
minds  with  a  fancy-account  of  him,  made  up  by  putting 
scattered  expressions  of  the  Bible  together,  and  taking 
them  literally ;  it  is  because  we  have  such  a  scanty 


PREFACE.  Xlll 

sense  of  the  life  of  humanity,  that  we  proceed  in  the 
like  manner  in  our  scheme  of  a  future  state.  He  that 
cannot  watch  the  God  of  the  Bible,  and  the  salvation 
of  the  Bible,  gradually  and  on  an  immense  scale  dis- 
covering themselves  and  becoming,  will  insist  on  seeing 
them  ready-made,  and  in  such  precise  and  reduced 
dimensions  as  may  suit  his  narrow  mind. 

To  understand  that  the  language  of  the  Bible  is  , 
fluid,  passing,  and  literary,  not  rigid,  fixed,  and  scien- 
tific, is  the  first  step  towards  a  right  understanding 
of  the  Bible.  But  to  take  this  very  first  step,  some 
experience  of  how  men  have  thought  and  expressed 
themselves,  and  some  flexibility  of  spirit,  are  necessary; 
and  this  is  culture.  Much  fruit  may  be  got  out  of  the 
Bible  without  it,  and  with  those  narrow  and  material- 
ised schemes  of  God  and  a  future  state  which  we 
have  mentioned  ;  that  we  do  not  deny,  but  it  is  not 
the  important  point  at  present.  The  important  point 
is,  that  the  diffusion  everywhere  of  some  notion  of  the 
processes  of  the  experimental  sciences, — processes  *^ 
falling  in,  too,  very  well  with  the  hard  and  positive 
character  of  the  life  of  "the  people," — the  point  is/ 
that  this  diffusion  does  lead  "  the  people  "  to  ask  for 
the  ground  and  authority  for  those  precise  schemes  of 
God  and  a  future  state  which  are  presented  to  them, 
and  to  see  clearly  and  scornfully  the  failure  to  give  it. 
The  failure  to  give  it  is  inevitable,  because  given  it  ~* 
cannot  be ;  but  whereas  in  the  training,  life,  and 
sentiment  of  the  well-to-do  classes  there  is  much  to 
make  them  disguise  the  failure  to  themselves  and  not 
insist  upon  it,  in  the  training,  life,  and  sentiment  of 


XIV  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

the  people  there  is  next  to  nothing.  So  that,  as  far 
as  the  people  are  concerned,  the  old  traditional  scheme 
of  the  Bible  is  gone ;  while  neither  they  nor  the  so- 
called  educated  classes  have  yet  anything  to  put  in 
its  place. 

And  thus  we  come  back  to  our  old  remedy  of 
culture, — knowing  the  best  that  has  been  thought  and 
known  in  the  world ;  which  turns  out  to  be,  in  another 
shape,  and  in  particular  relation  to  the  Bible  :  getting 
the  power,  through  reading,  to  estimate  the  proportion  and 
relation  in  what  we  read.  If  we  read  but  a  very  little, 
we  naturally  want  to  press  it  all ;  if  we  read  a  great 
deal,  we  are  willing  not  to  press  the  whole  of  what 
we  read,  and  we  learn  what  ought  to  be  pressed  and 
what  not.  Now  this  is  really  the  very  foundation  of 
any  sane  criticism.  We  have  told  the  Dissenters  that 
their  "  spirit  of  watchful  jealousy  "  is  wholly  destruc- 
tive and  exclusive  of  the  spirit  of  Christianity.  They 
answer  us,  that  St.  Paul  talks  of  "a  godly  jealousy," 
and  that  Jesus  Christ  uses  severe  invectives  against 
the  Scribes  and  Pharisees.  The  Dissenters  conclude, 
therefore,  that  their  jealousy  is  Christian,  because 
covered  by  Jesus  Christ's  use  of  invective. 

Now,  there  can  be  no  doubt  whatever,  that  in  his 
invectives  against  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees  Jesus 
abandoned  the  mild,  uncontentious,  winning,  inward 
mode  of  working  (He  shall  not  strive  nor  cry  /)  which 
was  his  true  characteristic,  and  in  which  his  charm 
and  power  lay  ;  and  that  there  was  no  chance  at  all 
of  his  gaining  by  such  invectives  the  persons  at  whom 
they  were  launched.  The  same  may  be  said  of  the 


PREFACE.  XV 

cases  where  St.  Paul  lets  loose  his  "  godly  jealousy," 
and  employs  objurgation  instead  of  the  mildness  which 
was  Jesus  Christ's  true  means,  and  which  Paul, — 
though  himself  no  special  adept  at  it, — nevertheless 
appreciated  so  worthily,  and  so  earnestly  extols.  St. 
Paul  certainly  had  no  chance  of  convincing  those 
whom  he  calls  "dogs,"  the  "concision,"  utterers  of 
"profane  and  vain  babblings,"  by  such  a  manner  of 
dealing  with  them. 

What  may,  indeed,  fairly  be  said  is,  that  the 
Pharisees  against  whom  Jesus  denounced  his  woes, 
or  the  Judaisers  against  whom  Paul  fulminated, 
were  people  whom  there  could  be  no  hope  of  gaining ; 
and  that  not  their  conversion,  but  a  strong  impression 
on  the  faithful  who  read  or  heard,  was  the  thing 
aimed  at,  and  very  rightly  aimed  at.  And  so  far  at 
any  rate  as  Jesus  Christ's  use  of  invective  against  the 
Pharisees  is  concerned,  this  may  be  quite  true ;  but 
what  a  criticism  is  that,  which  can  gather  hence  any 
general  defence  of  jealousy  and  objurgation  as  Chris- 
tian !  For,  in  the  first  place,  such  weapons  can  have 
no  excuse  at  all  except  as  employed  against  individ- 
uals who  are  past  hope,  or  against  institutions  which 
are  palpably  monstrosities.  They  can  have  none  as 
employed  against  institutions  containing  more  than 
half  a  great  nation,  and  therefore  a  multitude  of 
individuals  good  as  well  as  bad.  And  therefore  we 
see  that  Jesus  Christ  never  dreamed  of  assailing  the 
Jewish  Church  ;  all  he  cared  for  was  to  transform  it, 
by  transforming  as  many  as  were  transformable  of 
the  individuals  composing  it.  In  the  second  place, 
VOL.  v.  b 


XVI  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

when  such  means  of  action  have  a  defence,  they  are 
defensible  although  violations  of  Jesus  Christ's  estab- 
lished rule  of  working,  never  commendable  as  exem- 
plifications of  it.  Mildness  and  sweet  reasonableness 
is  the  one  established  rule  for  Christian  working,  and 
no  other  rule  has  it  or  can  it  have.  But,  using  the 
Bible  in  the  mechanical  and  helpless  way  in  which 
one  uses  it  when  one  has  hardly  any  other  book,  men 
fail  to  see  this,  clear  as  it  is.  And  they  do  really 
come  to  imagine  that  the  Dissenters'  "  spirit  of  watch- 
ful jealousy,"  may  be  a  Christian  temper;  or  that  a 
movement  like  the  Liberation  Society's  crusade  against 
the  Church  of  England  may  be  a  Christian  work. 
And  it  is  in  this  way  that  Christianity  gets  dis- 
credited. 

Now,  simple  as  it  is,  it  is  not  half  enough  under- 
stood, this  reason  for  culture  :  namely,  that  to  read 
to  good  purpose  we  must  read  a  great  deal,  and  be 
content  not  to  use  a  great  deal  of  what  we  read.  We 
shall  never  be  content  not  to  use  the  whole,  or  nearly  the 
whole,  of  what  we  read,  unless  we  read  a  great  deal.  Yet 
things  are  on  such  a  scale,  and  progress  is  so  gradual,  and 
what  one  man  can  do  is  so  bounded,  that  the  moment 
we  press  the  whole  of  what  any  writer  says,  we  fall  into 
error.  He  touches  a  great  deal :  the  thing  to  know 
is  where  he  is  all  himself  and  his  best  self,  where  he 
shows  his  power,  where  he  goes  to  the  heart  of  the 
matter,  where  he  gives  us  what  no  other  man  gives 
us,  or  gives  us  so  well.  In  his  valuable  Church  History, 
Dr.  Stoughton  says  of  Hooker :  "  The  Puritan  prin- 
ciple of  the  authority  and  unchangeableness  of  a 


PREFACE.  xvii 

revealed  Church -polity  Hooker  substantially  admits. 
Although  this  deep  thinker  sometimes  talks  perilously 
of  altering  Christ's  laws,  he  says :  '  In  the  matter  of 
external  discipline  itself,  we  do  not  deny  but  there 
are  some  things  whereto  the  Church  is  bound  till  the 
world's  end.'"  Dr.  Stoughton  does  not  see  that  to 
use  his  Hooker  in  this  way  is  entirely  fallacious. 
Hooker,  this  "  deep  thinker,"  as  Dr.  Stoughton  truly 
calls  him,  one  of  the  four  chief  names  of  the  English 
Church,  is  great  by  having,  signally  and  above  others, 
or  before  others  and  when  others  had  not,  the  sense, 
in  religion,  of  history  and  of  historic  development. 
So,  too,  Butler  is  great  by  having  the  sense  of  philo- 
sophy, Barrow  by  having  that  of  morals,  Wilson  that 
of  practical  Christianity.  But  if  Hooker  spoke,  as  he 
did,  of  Church-history  like  a  historian,  and  exploded 
the  Puritan  figment,  due  to  a  defective  historic  sense, 
of  a  revealed  Church -polity,  a  Scriptural  Church - 
order, — if  Hooker  did  this,  this  was  so  new  that  he 
could  not  possibly  do  it  without  reservations,  limita- 
tions, apologies.  He  could  not  help  saying  :  "  We  do 
not  deny  there  may  be  some  external  things  whereto 
the  Church  is  eternally  bound."  But  he  is  truly 
himself,  he  is  the  great  Hooker,  the  man  from  whom 
we  learn,  when  he  shatters  the  Puritan  figment,  not 
when  he  uses  the  language  of  compliment  and  cere- 
mony in  shattering  it. 

In  like  manner  that  eloquent  orator,  Mr.  Liddon, 
looking  about  him  for  authorities  which  commend 
the  Athanasian  Creed,  finds  Hooker  commending  it, 
and  quotes  him  as  an  authority.  This,  again,  is  to 


XVlii  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

make  a  use  of  Hooker  which  has  no  soundness  in  it. 
Hooker's  greatness  is  that  he  gives  the  real  method 
of  criticism  for  Church -dogma,  the  historic  method. 
Church-dogma  is  not  written  in  black  and  white  in 
the  Bible,  he  says  :  it  has  to  be  collected  from  it ;  it 
is,  as  we  now  say,  a  development  from  it.  This  and 
that  dogma,  says  Hooker,  "  are  in  Scripture  nowhere 
to  be  found  by  express  literal  mention,  only  deduced 
they  are  out  of  Scripture  by  collection."  And  he 
assigns  the  one  right  criterion  for  determining  whether 
a  dogma  is  justly  deduced,  and  what  Scripture  means, 
and  what  is  its  true  character  :  the  criterion  of  reason. 
He  assigns  this  with  splendid  boldness  :  "  It  is  not  the 
word  of  God  itself,"  says  he,  "  which  doth,  or  possibly 
can,  assure  us  that  we  do  well  to  think  it  his  word ; " 
no,  it  is  reason,  much-reviled  reason.  Surely  this  is 
enough  for  a  sixteenth-century  divine  to  give  us  in 
-theology, — the  very  method  of  true  science  !  without 
our  expecting  him  to  make  the  full  application  of  it, 
without  expecting  him  to  say  that  the  Church-dogmas 
of  his  time,  the  dogma  of  the  Athanasian  Creed 
among  the  rest,  which  were  not  seriously  in  question 
yet,  on  which  the  Time-Spirit  had  not  then  turned 
his  light,  were  false  developments;  without  wondering 
at  his  saying,  that  they  were  developments  "  the 
necessity  whereof  is  by  none  denied!"  This  is  all 
that  Hooker's  warranty  of  the  Athanasian  Creed 
really  comes  to,  or  can  come  to.  To  fix  the  method 
by  which  that  Creed  must  finally  be  judged  was  the 
main  issue  for  him ;  to  judge  the  Creed  by  that 
method  was  a  side-issue,  whereon  he  never  really 


PREFACE.  XIX 

entered  nor  could  enter,  but  treated  the  thing  as 
already  settled.  Therefore  Hooker  is  no  real  authority 
in  favour  of  the  Athanasian  Creed ;  though  we  might 
think  he  was,  if  we  read  him  without  discrimination. 
And  to  read  him  with  discrimination  culture  is 
necessary. 

Luther,  again,  Mr.  Liddon  cites  as  a  witness  on 
the  question  of  the  Athanasian  Creed ;  and  he  might 
as  well  cite  him  as  a  witness  on  the  question  of  the 
origin  of  species.  Luther's  greatness  is  in  his  revival 
of  the  sense  of  conscience  and  personal  responsibility, 
and  in  the  fresh  vigorous  power  which  this  sense,  joined 
to  his  robust  mother-wit,  gave  him  in  using  the  Bible. 
He  had  enough  to  do  in  attacking  Eomish  develop- 
ments from  the  Bible,  which  by  their  practical  side 
were  evidently,  to  a  plain  moral  sense  and  a  plain 
mother- wit,  false  developments,  without  attacking 
speculative  dogma,  which  had  no  visible  bad  effects 
on  practice,  which  had  all  antiquity  in  its  favour,  on 
which,  as  we  say,  the  Time -Spirit  had  not  then 
turned  his  light,  of  which, — so  Luther  might  say,  like 
Hooker, — "  the  necessity  was  by  none  denied."  All 
this  high  speculative  dogma  he  could  not  but  affirm, 
and  the  more  emphatically  the  more  he  questioned 
lower  practical  dogma.  But  his  affirmation  of  it  is 
not  one  of  those  things  we  can  use ;  and  whoever 
reads  in  the  folios  of  Luther's  works  without  passing 
lightly  over  very  much,  and,  amongst  it,  over  this,  reads 
there  ill.  And  without  culture,  without  the  use  of  so 
many  books  that  he  can  afford  not  to  over-use  and  mis- 
use one,  ill  a  man  is  likely  to  read  there. 


XX  LITERATUKE  AND  DOGMA. 

We  can  hardly  urge  this  topic  too  much,  of  so 
great  a  practical  importance  is  it,  and  above  all  at 
the  present  time.  To  be  able  to  control  what  one 
reads  by  means  of  the  tact  coming,  in  a  clear  and  fair 
mind,  from  a  wide  experience,  was  never  perhaps  so 
necessary  as  in  the  England  of  our  own  day,  and  in 
theology,  and  in  what  concerns  the  Bible./ In  every 
study  one  has  to  commence  with  the  facts  of  that 
study.  To  get  the  facts,  the  data,  in  most  matters  of 
science,  but  notably  in  theology  and  Biblical  learning, 
one  goes  to  Germany.  Germany,  and  it  is  her  high 
honour,  has  searched  out  the  facts  and  exhibited 
them.  And  without  knowledge  of  the  facts,  no 
clearness  or  fairness  of  mind  can  in  any  study  do 
anything  ;  this  cannot  be  laid  down  too  rigidly. 
Now,  English  religion  does  not  know  the  facts  of  its 
study,  and  has  to  go  to  Germany  for  them.  This  is 
half  apparent  to  English  religion  even  now,  and  it 
will  daily  become  more  and  more  apparent.  And  so 
overwhelming  is  the  advantage  given  by  knowing  the 
facts  of  a  study,  that  a  student,  who  comes  to  a  man 
who  knows  them,  is  tempted  to  put  himself  into  his 
hands  altogether ;  and  this  we  in  general  see  English 
students  do,  when  they  have  recourse  to  the  theologians 
of  Germany.  They  put  themselves  altogether  into 
their  hands,  and  take  all  that  they  give  them,  con- 
clusions as  well  as  facts. 

But  they  ought  not  to  use  them  in  this  manner ; 
for  a  man  may  have  the  facts  and  yet  be  unable  to 
draw  the  right  conclusions  from  them.  In  general, 
he  may  want  power ;  as  one  may  say  of  Strauss,  for 


PREFACE.  XXI 

instance,  that  to  what  is  unsolid  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment he  applies  a  negative  criticism  ably  enough,  but 
that  to  deal  with  the  reality  which  is  still  left  in  the 
New  Testament,  requires  a  larger,  richer,  deeper, 
more  imaginative  mind  than  his.  But  perhaps  the 
quality  specially  needed  for  drawing  the  right  con- 
clusion from  the  facts,  when  one  has  got  them,  is  best 
called  perception,  justness  of  perception.  And  this  no 
man  can  well  have  who  is  a  mere  specialist,  who  has 
not  what  we  call  culture  in  addition  to  the  knowledge 
of  his  particular  study ;  and  so  many  theologians,  in 
Germany  as  well  as  elsewhere,  are  specialists  !  After 
we  have  got  all  the  facts  of  our  special  study,  justness 
of  perception  to  deal  with  the  facts  is  still  required, 
and  is,  even,  the  principal  thing  of  all. 

But  in  this  sort  of  tact,  the  German  mind,  if  one 
may  allow  oneself  to  speak  in  such  a  general  way, 
does  seem  to  be  even  by  nature  somewhat  wanting. 
In  the  German  mind,  as  in  the  German  language, 
there  does  seem  to  be  something  splay,  something 
blunt-edged,  unhandy  and  infelicitous, — some  positive 
want  of  straightforward,  sure  perception,  which  tends 
to  balance  the  great  superiority  of  the  Germans  in 
special  knowledge,  and  in  the  disposition  to  deal 
impartially  with  knowledge.  For  impartial  they  are, 
as  well  as  learned ;  and  this  is  a  signal  merit.  While 
M.  Barthelemy  St.-Hilaire  cannot  translate  Aristotle 
without  intermixing  platitudes  in  glorification  of  the 
French  gospel  of  the  Rights  of  Man,  while  one  English 
historian  writes  history  to  extol  the  Whigs  and  another 
to  execrate  the  Church,  German  workers  proceed  in  a 


XXll  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

more  philosophical  fashion.  Still,  in  quickness  and 
sureness  of  perception, — in  tact,— they  do  seem  to  fall 
somewhat  short. 

Of  course  in  a  man  of  genius  this  shortcoming  is 
much  less  observable  ;  but  even  in  Germans  of  genius 
there  is  something  of  it.  Goethe  even,  for  instance, 
had  less  of  quick,  keen  tact,  one  must  surely  own,  than 
the  great  men  of  other  nations  whom  alone  one  can 
cite  as  his  literary  compeers :  Shakespeare,  Voltaire, 
Cicero,  Plato.  Whether  it  be,  as  we  have  elsewhere 
speculated,1  from  race  ;  or  whether  this  quickness  and 
sureness  of  perception  comes,  rather,  from  a  long 
practical  conversance  with  great  affairs,  and  only  those 
nations  which  have  at  any  time  had  a  practical  lead 
of  the  civilised  world,  the  Greeks,  the  Eomans,  the 
Italians,  the  French,  the  English,  can  have  it ;  and  the 
Germans  have  till  now  had  no  such  practical  lead, 
though  now  they  have  got  it,  and  may  now,  therefore, 
acquire  the  practical  dexterity  of  perception ;  however 
this  may  be,  the  thing  is  so,  and  a  learned  German 
has  by  no  means,  in  general,  a  fine  and  practically  sure 
perception  in  proportion  to  his  learning.  Give  a 
Frenchman,  an  Italian,  an  Englishman,  the  same 
knowledge  of  the  facts, — removing  from  him,  at  the 
same  time,  all  such  disturbing  influence  as  political 
partisanship,  ecclesiastical  antipathies,  national  vanity, 
— and  you  could,  in  general,  trust  his  perception 
more  than  you  can  the  German's.  This,  I  say,  shows 
how  large  a  thing  criticism  is;  since  even  of  those 
from  whom  we  take  what  we  now  in  theology  most 
1  On  the  Study  of  Celtic  Literature,  pp.  73,  74. 


rilEFACE.  xxni 

\vant,  knowledge  of  the  facts  of  our  study,  and  to 
whom  therefore  we  are,  and  ought  to  be,  under  deep 
obligations,  even  of  them  we  must  not  take  too  much, 
or  take  anything  like  all  that  they  offer;  but  we 
must  take  much  and  leave  much,  and  must  have  tact 
enough  to  know  what  to  take  and  what  to  leave. 
And  an  Englishman  with  the  necessary  knowledge 
has  in  other  respects  the  training  likely  to  give  this  tact; 
but  without  knowledge  and  culture  we  cannot  have  it. 
For  a  right  understanding  of  the  Bible  itself,  the 
discriminative  experience,  so  much  required  in  all  our 
theological  studies,  is  particularly  indispensable.  And 
to  our  popular  religion  it  is  especially  difficult ;  because 
we  have  been  trained  to  regard  the  Bible,  not  as  a 
book  whose  parts  have  varying  degrees  of  value,  but 
as  the  Jews  came  to  regard  their  Scriptures,  as  a  sort 
of  talisman  given  down  to  us  out  of  Heaven,  with  all 
its  parts  equipollent.  And  yet  there  was  a  time  when 
Jews  knew  well  the  vast  difference  there  is  between 
books  like  Esther,  Chronicles,  or  Daniel,  and  books 
like  Genesis  or  Isaiah.  There  was  a  time  when 
Christians  knew  well  the  vast  difference  between  the 
First  Epistle  of  Peter  and  his  so-called  Second  Epistle, 
or  between  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  and  the  Epistles 
to  the  Romans  and  to  the  Corinthians.  This,  indeed, 
is  what  makes  the  religious  watchword  of  the  British 
and  Foreign  School  Society  :  The- Bible,  the  whole  Bible, 
and  nothing  but  the  Bible  !  so  ingeniously  (one  must  say) 
absurd ;  it  is  treating  the  Bible  as  Mahometans  treat 
the  Koran,  as  if  it  were  a  talisman  all  of  one  piece, 
and  with  all  its  sentences  equipollent. 


XXIV  LITEKATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

Yet  the  very  expressions,  Canon  of  Scripture, 
leal  Books,  recall  a  time  when  degrees  of  value  were 
still  felt,  and  all  parts  of  the  Bible  did  not  stand  on 
the  same  footing,  and  were  not  taken  equally.  There 
was  a  time  when  books  were  read  as  part  of  the  Bible 
which  are  in  no  Bible  now ;  there  was  a  time  when 
books  which  are  in  every  Bible  now,  were  by  many 
disallowed  as  genuine  parts  of  the  Bible.  St.  Atha- 
nasius  rejected  the  Book  of  Esther,  and  the  Greek 
Christianity  of  the  East  repelled  the  Apocalypse,  and 
the  Latin  Christianity  of  the  West  repelled  the  Epistle 
to  the  Hebrews.  And  a  true  critical  sense  of  relative 
value  lay  at  the  bottom  of  all  these  rejections.  No 
one  rejected  Isaiah  or  the  Epistle  to  the  Eomans. 
The  books  rejected  were  such  books  as  those  which 
we  now  print  as  the  Apocrypha,  or  as  the  Book  of 
Esther,  or  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  or  the  so-called 
Epistle  of  Jude,  or  the  so-called  Second  Epistle  of  St. 
Peter,  or  the  two  short  Epistles  following  the  main 
Epistle  attributed  to  St.  John,  or  the  Apocalypse. 

Now,  whatever  value  one  may  assign  to  these  works, 
no  sound  critic  would  rate  their  intrinsic  worth  as 
high  as  that  of  the  great  undisputed  books  of  the 
Bible.  And  so  far  from  their  finally  getting  where 
they  now  are  after  a  thorough  trial  of  their  claims, 
and  with  indisputable  propriety,  they  got  placed  there 
by  the  force  of  circumstances,  by  chance  or  by  routine, 
rather  than  on  their  merits.  Indeed,  by  merit  alone 
the  Book  of  Esther  could  have  no  right  at  all  to  be 
now  in  our  Canon  while  Ecclesiasticus  is  not,  nor  the 
Epistle  of  Jude  and  the  Second  Epistle  of  Peter  rather 


PKEFACE.  XXV 

than  the  First  Epistle  of  Clement.  But  the  whole 
discussion  died  out,  not  because  the  matter  was  sifted 
and  settled  and  a  perfect  Canon  of  Scripture  deliber- 
ately formed;  it  died  out  as  mediaeval  ignorance 
deepened,  and  because  there  was  no  longer  knowledge 
or  criticism  enough  left  in  the  world  to  keep  such  a 
discussion  alive. 

And  so  things  went  on  till  the  Eenascence,  when 
criticism  came  to  life  again.  But  the  Church  had  now 
long  since  adopted  the  Vulgate,  and  her  authority 
was  concerned  in  maintaining  what  she  had  adopted. 
Luther  and  Calvin,  on  the  other  hand,  recurred  to  the 
old  true  notion  of  a  difference  in  rank  and  genuineness 
among  the  Bible -books.  For  they  both  of  them 
insisted  on  the  criterion  of  internal  evidence  for 
Scripture:  "the  witness  of  the  Spirit."  How  freely 
Luther  used  this  criterion  we  may  see  by  reading 
in  the  old  editions  of  his  Bible  his  prefaces,  which 
in  succeeding  editions  have  long  ceased  to  appear. 
Whether  he  used  it  aright  we  do  not  now  inquire,  but 
he  used  it  freely.  Taunted,  however,  by  Rome  with 
their  divisions,  their  want  of  a  fixed  authority  like  the 
Church,  Protestants  were  driven  to  make  the  Bible 
this  fixed  authority ;  and  so  the  Bible  came  to  be 
regarded  as  a  thing  all  of  a  piece,  endued  with  talis- 
manic  virtues.  It  came  to  be  regarded  as  something 
different  from  anything  it  had  originally  ever  been,  or 
primitive  times  had  ever  imagined  it  to  be.  And 
Protestants  did  practically  in  this  way  use  the  Bible 
more  irrationally  than  Rome  practically  ever  used  it ; 
for  Rome  had  her  hypothesis  of  the  Church  Catholic 


XXVI  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

endued  with  talismanic  virtues,  and  did  not  want  a 
talismanic  Bible  too.  All  this  perversion  has  made  a 
discriminating  use  of  the  Bible-documents  very  difficult 
in  our  country ;  yet  without  it  a  sound  criticism  of 
the  Bible  is  impossible  •  and  even,  as  we  say,  the  very 
word  Canon,  the  Canon  bf  Scripture,  points  to  such  a  use. 

But,  indeed,  there  is  hardly  any  great  thing  per- 
verted by  men  which  does  not  in  some  sort  thus 
indicate  its  own  perversion.  The  idea  of  the  infallible 
Church  Catholic  itself,  as  we  have  elsewhere  said,1  is 
an  idea  the  most  fatal  of  all  possible  ideas  to  the 
concrete,  so-called  infallible,  Church  of  Rome,  such  as 
we  now  see  it.  The  infallible  Church  Catholic  is, 
really,  the  prophetic  soul  of  the  wide  world  dreaming  of 
things  to  come  ;  the  whole  human  race,  in  its  onward 
progress,  discovering  truth  more  complete  than  the 
parcel  of  truth  any  momentary  individual  can  seize. 
Nay,  and  it  is  with  the  Pope  himself  as  with  the 
Church  Catholic.  That  amiable  old  pessimist  in  St. 
Peter's  Chair,  whose  allocutions  we  read  and  call  them 
impotent  and  vain, — the  Pope  himself  is,  in  his  idea, 
the  very  Time-Spirit  taking  flesh,  the  incarnate  "  Zeit- 
Geist !"  O  man,  how  true  are  thine  instincts,  how 
over-hasty  thine  interpretations  of  them  ! 

But  to  return.  Difficult,  certainly,  is  the  right 
reading  of  the  Bible,  and  true  culture,  too,  is  difficult. 
For  true  culture  implies  not  only  knowledge,  but  right 
tact  and  justness  of  judgment,  forming  themselves  by 
and  with  knowledge  ;  without  this  tact  it  is  not  true 
culture.  Difficult,  however,  as  culture  is,  it  is  necessary. 
1  St.  Paul  and  Protestantism,  p.  131. 


PREFACE.  xxvn 

For,  after  all,  the  Bible  is  not  a  talisman,  to  be  taken 
and  used  literally ;  neither  is  any  existing  Church  a 
talisman,  whatever  pretensions  of  the  sort  it  may 
make,  for  giving  the  right  interpretation  of  the  Bible. 
Only  true  culture  can  give  us  this  interpretation ;  so 
that  if  conduct  is,  as  it  is,  inextricably  bound  up  with  ; 
the  Bible  and  the  right  interpretation  of  it,  then  the 
importance  of  culture  becomes  unspeakable.  For  if 
conduct  is  necessary  (and  there  is  nothing  so  necessary), 
culture  is  necessary. 

And  the  poor  require  it  as  much  as  the  rich ;  and 
at  present  their  education,  even  when  they  get  educa- 
tion, gives  them  hardly  anything  of  it.  Yet  hardly 
less  of  it,  perhaps,  than  the  education  of  the  rich  gives 
to  the  rich.  For  when  we  say  that  culture  is  :  To 
know  the  lest  that  has  been  thought  and  said  in  the  world, 
we  imply  that,  for  culture,  a  system  directly  tending 
to  this  end  is  necessary  in  our  reading.  Now,  there 
is  no  such  system  yet  present  to  guide  the  reading 
of  the  rich  any  more  than  of  the  poor.  Such  a 
system  is  hardly  even  thought  of  ;  a  man  who  wants 
-it  must  make  it  for  himself.  And  our  reading  being 
so  without  purpose  as  it  is,  nothing  can  be  truer  than 
what  Butler  says,  that  really,  in  general,  no  part  of 
our  time  is  more  idly  spent  than  the  time  spent  in 
reading. 

Still,  culture  is  indispensably  necessary,  and  culture 
is  reading  ;  but  reading  with  a  purpose  to  guide  it,  and 
with  system.  He  does  a  good  work  who  does  anything 
to  help  this  :  indeed,  it  is  the  one  essential  service 
now  to  be  rendered  to  education.  And  the  plea  that 


XXVlll  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

this  or  that  man  has  no  time  for  culture  will  vanish 
as  soon  as  we  desire  culture  so  much  that  we  begin  to 
examine  seriously  our  present  use  of  our  time.  It 
has  often  been  said,  and  cannot  be  said  too  often  : 
Give  to  any  man  all  the  time  that  he  now  wastes,  not 
only  on  his  vices  (when  he  has  them),  but  on  useless 
business,  wearisome  or  deteriorating  amusements, 
trivial  letter -writing,  random  reading,  and  he  will 
have  plenty  of  time  for  culture.  "Die  Zeit  ist  unend- 
lich  lang"  says  Goethe  ;  and  so  it  really  is.  Some  of 
us  waste  all  of  it,  most  of  us  waste  much,  but  all  of 
us  waste  some. 


CONTENTS. 

CHAP.  PAGE 

INTRODUCTION     ...  .1 

I.  RELIGION  GIVEN             ....  9 

II.  ABERGLAUBE  INVADING            .           .  .55 

III.  RELIGION  NEW-GIVEN    .                       .  .71 

IV.  THE  PROOF  FROM  PROPHECY     .           .  .          97 
V.  THE  PROOF  FROM  MIRACLES     .           .  .        105 

VI.  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  RECORD              .  .        134 

VII.  THE  TESTIMONY  OF  JESUS  TO  HIMSELF  .        164 

VIII.  THE  EARLY  WITNESSES             .            .  .226 

IX.  ABERGLAUBE  RE-INVADING       .           .  .        249 

X.  OUR  "MASSES"  AND  THE  BIBLE           .  .        281 

XI.  THE  TRUE  GREATNESS  OF  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT      306 

XII.  THE  TRUE  GREATNESS  OF  CHRISTIANITY  .        328 

CONCLUSION  345 


LITEKATUEE    AND   DOGMA. 


INTRODUCTION. 

MR.  DISRAELI,  treating  Hellenic  things  with  the 
scornful  negligence  natural  to  a  Hebrew,  said  the 
other  day  in  a  well-known  book,  that  our  aristocratic 
class,  the  polite  flower  of  the  nation,  were  truly 
Hellenic  in  this  respect  among  others, — that  they 
cared  nothing  for  letters  and  never  read.  Now,  there 
seems  to  be  here  some  inaccuracy,  if  we  take  our 
standard  of  what  is  Hellenic  from  Hellas  at  its  highest 
pitch  of  development.  For  the  latest  historian  of 
Greece,  Dr.  Curtius,  tells  us  that  in  the  Athens  of 
Pericles  "reading  was  universally  diffused;"  and 
again,  that  "  what  more  than  anything  distinguishes 
the  Greeks  from  the  barbarians  of  ancient  and  modern 
times,  is  the  idea  of  a  culture  comprehending  body 
and  soul  in  an  equal  measure."  And  we  have  our- 
selves called  our  aristocratic  class  Barbarians,  which 
is  the  contrary  of  Hellenes,  from  this  very  reason  :  be- 
cause, with  all  their  fine,  fresh  appearance,  their  open- 
VOL.  v.  &  B 


LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

air  life,  and  their  love  of  field-sports,  for  reading  and 
thinking  they  have  in  general  no  great  turn.  But  no 
doubt  Mr.  Disraeli  was  thinking  of  the  primitive 
Hellenes  of  north-western  Greece,  from  among  whom 
the  Dorians  of  Peloponnesus  originally  came,  but 
who  themselves  remained  in  their  old  seats  and  did 
not  migrate  and  develop  like  their  more  famous 
brethren.  And  of  these  primitive  Hellenes,  of  Greeks 
like  the  Chaonians  and  Molossians,  it  is  probably  a 
very  just  account  to  give,  that  they  lived  in  the  open 
air,  loved  field-sports,  and  never  read.  And,  explained 
in  this  way,  Mr.  Disraeli's  parallel  of  our  aristocratic 
class  with  what  he  somewhat  misleadingly  calls  the 
old  Hellenic  race,  appears  ingenious  and  sound.  To 
those  lusty  northerners,  the  Molossian  and  Chaonian 
Greeks — Greeks  untouched  by  the  development  which 
contradistinguishes  the  Hellene  from  the  barbarian, — 
our  aristocratic  class,  as  he  exhibits  it,  has  a  strong  re- 
semblance. At  any  rate,  this  class, — which  from  its 
great  possessions,  its  beauty  and  attractiveness,  the 
admiration  felt  for  it  by  the  Philistines  or  middle  class, 
its  actual  power  in  the  nation,  and  the  still  more  con- 
siderable destinies  to  which  its  politeness,  in  Mr. 
Carlyle's  opinion,  entitles  it,  cannot  but  attract  our 
notice  pre-eminently, — shows  at  present  a  great  and 
genuine  disregard  for  letters. 

And  perhaps,  if  there  is  any  other  body  of  men 
which  strikes  one,  even  after  looking  at  our  aristo- 
cratic class,  as  being  in  the  sunshine,  as  exercising 
great  attraction,  as  being  admired  by  the  Philistines 
or  middle  class,  and  as  having  before  it  a  future  still 


INTRODUCTION.  3 

more  brilliant  than  its  present,  it  is  the  friends  of 
physical  science.  Now,  their  revolt  against  the  tyranny 
of  letters  is  notorious.  To  deprive  letters  of  the  too 
great  place  they  have  hitherto  filled  in  men's  estima- 
tion, and  to  substitute  other  studies  for  these,  is  the 
object  of  a  sort  of  crusade  with  a  body  of  people  im- 
portant in  itself,  but  still  more  important  because  of 
the  gifted  leaders  who  march  at  its  head. 

Religion  has  always  hitherto  been  a  great  power 
in  England ;  and  on  this  account,  perhaps,  whatever 
humiliations  may  be  in  store  for  religion  in  the  future, 
the  friends  of  physical  science  will  not  object  to  our 
saying  that,  after  them  and  the  aristocracy,  the 
leaders  of  the  religious  world  fill  a  prominent  place 
in  the  public  eye  even  now,  and  one  cannot  help 
noticing  what  their  opinions  and  likings  are.  And  it 
is  curious  how  the  feeling  of  the  chief  people  in  the 
religious  world,  too,  seems  to  be  just  now  against 
mere  letters,  which  they  slight  as  the  vague  and 
inexact  instrument  of  shallow  essayists  and  magazine- 
writers  ;  and  in  favour  of  dogma,  of  a  scientific  and 
exact  presentment  of  religious  things,  instead  of  a 
literary  presentment  of  them.  "Dogmatic  theology," 
says  the  Guardian,  speaking  of  our  existing  dogmatic 
theology, — "  Dogmatic  theology,  that  is,  precision  and 
definiteness  of  religious  thought."  "  Maudlin  sentimen- 
talism,"  says  the  Dean  of  Norwich,  "with  its  miser- 
able disparagements  of  any  definite  doctrine  ;  a  nerveless 
religion,  without  the  sinew  and  bone  of  doctrine." 
The  distinguished  Chancellor  of  the  University  of 
Oxford  thought  it  needful  to  tell  us  on  a  public 


4  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

occasion  lately,  that  "  religion  is  no  more  to  be  severed 
from  dogma  than  light  from  the  sun."  Every  one, 
again,  remembers  the  Bishops  of  Winchester1  and 
Gloucester  making  in  Convocation  their  remarkable 
effort  "to  do  something,"  as  they  said,  "for  the 
honour  of  Our  Lord's  Godhead,"  and  to  mark  their 
sense  of  "  that  infinite  separation  for  time  and  for 
eternity  which  is  involved  in  rejecting  the  Godhead 
of  the  Eternal  Son."  In  the  same  way:  "To  no 
teaching,"  says  one  champion  of  dogma,  "can  the 
appellation  of  Christian  be  truly  given  which  does  not 
involve  the  idea  of  a  Personal  God."  Another  lays 
like  stress  on  correct  ideas  about  the  Personality  of 
the  Holy  Ghost.  "  Our  Lord  unquestionably,"  says 
a  third,  "  annexes  eternal  life  to  a  right  knowledge  of 
the  Godhead," — that  is,  to  a  right  speculative,  dogma- 
tic knowledge  of  it.  A  fourth  appeals  to  history  and 
human  nature  for  proof  that  "  an  undogmatic  Church 
can  no  more  satisfy  the  hunger  of  the  soul,  than  a 
snowball,  painted  to  look  like  fruit,  would  stay  the 
hunger  of  the  stomach."  And  all  these  friends  of 
theological  science  are,  like  the  friends  of  physical 
science,  though  from  another  cause,  severe  upon 
letters.  Attempts  made  at  a  literary  treatment  of 
religious  history  and  ideas  they  call  "  a  subverting  of 
the  faith  once  delivered  to  the  saints."  Those  who 
make  them  they  speak  of  as  "  those  who  have  made 
shipwreck  of  the  faith  ; "  and  when  they  talk  of  "  the 
poison  openly  disseminated  by  infidels,"  and  describe 
the  "  progress  of  infidelity,"  which  more  and  more, 
1  The  late  Bishop  Wilberforce. 


INTRODUCTION.  5 

according  to  their  account,  "  denies  God,  rejects 
Christ,  and  lets  loose  every  human  passion,"  though 
they  have  the  audaciousness  of  physical  science  most 
in  their  eye,  yet  they  have  a  direct  aim,  too,  at  the 
looseness  and  dangerous  temerity  of  letters. 

Keeping  in  remembrance  what  Scripture  says 
about  the  young  man  who  had  great  possessions,  to 
be  able  to  work  a  change  of  mind  in  our  aristocratic 
class  we  never  have  pretended,  we  never  shall  pretend. 
But  to  the  friends  of  physical  science  and  to  the 
friends  of  dogma  we  do  feel  emboldened,  after  giving 
our  best  consideration  to  the  matter,  to  say  a  few  words 
on  behalf  of  letters,  and  in  deprecation  of  the  slight 
which,  on  different  grounds,  they  both  put  upon 
them.  But  particularly  in  reply  to  the  friends  of 
dogma  do  we  wish  to  insist  on  the  case  for  letters, 
because  of  the  great  issues  which  seem  to  us  to  be 
here  involved.  Therefore  of  the  relation  of  letters  to 
religion  we  are  going  now  to  speak ;  of  their  effect 
upon  dogma,  and  of  the  consequences  of  this  to 
religion.  And  so  the  subject  of  the  present  volume 
will  be  literature  and  dogma. 


IL 

It  is  clear  that  dogmatists  love  religion ; — for  else 
why  do  they  occupy  themselves  with  it  so  much,  and 
make  it,  most  of  them,  the  business,  even  the  pro- 
fessional business,  of  their  lives  1  And  clearly  religion 
seeks  man's  salvation.  How  distressing,  therefore, 
must  it  be  to  them,  to  think  that  "  salvation  is  un- 


6  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

questionably  annexed  to  a  right  knowledge  of  the 
Godhead,"  and  that  a  right  knowledge  of  the  Godhead 
depends  upon  reasoning,  for  which  so  many  people 
have  not  much  aptitude ;  and  upon  reasoning  from 
ideas  or  terms  such  as  substance,  identity,  causation, 
design,  about  which  there  is  endless  disagreement ! 
It  is  true,  a  right  knowledge  of  geometry  also  depends 
upon  reasoning,  and  many  people  never  get  it ;  but 
then,  in  the  first  place,  salvation  is  not  annexed  to  a 
right  knowledge  of  geometry ;  and  in  the  second,  the 
ideas  or  terms  such  as  point,  line,  angle,  from  which 
we  reason  in  geometry,  are  terms  about  which  there 
is  no  ambiguity  or  disagreement.  But  as  to  the 
demonstrations  and  terms  of  theology  we  cannot 
comfort  ourselves  in  this  manner.  How  must  this 
thought  mar  the  Archbishop  of  York's  enjoyment  of 
such  a  solemnity  as  that  in  which,  to  uphold  and 
renovate  religion,  he  lectured  lately  to  Lord  Harrowby, 
Dean  Payne  Smith,  and  other  kindred  souls,  upon 
the  theory  of  causation  !  And  what  a  consolation  to 
us,  who  are  so  perpetually  being  taunted  with  our 
known  inaptitude  for  abstruse  reasoning,  if  we  can 
find  that  for  this  great  concern  of  religion,  at  any 
rate,  abstruse  reasoning  does  not  seem  to  be  the 
appointed  help ;  and  that  as  good  or  better  a  help, — 
for  indeed  there  can  hardly,  to  judge  by  the  present 
state  of  things,  be  a  worse, — may  be  something  which 
is  in  an  ordinary  man's  power ! 

For  the  good  of  letters  is,  that  they  require  no 
extraordinary  acuteness  such  as  is  required  to  handle 
the  theory  of  causation  like  the  Archbishop  of  York, 


INTRODUCTION.  7 

or  the  doctrine  of  the  Godhead  of  the  Eternal  Son 
like  the  Bishops  of  Winchester  and  Gloucester.  The 
good  of  letters  may  be  had  without  skill  in  arguing, 
or  that  formidable  logical  apparatus,  not  unlike  a 
guillotine,  which  Professor  Huxley  speaks  of  some- 
where as  the  young  man's  best  companion ; — and  so 
it  would  be,  no  doubt,  if  all  wisdom  were  come  at  by 
hard  reasoning.  In  that  case,  all  who  could  not 
manage  this  apparatus  (and  only  a  few  picked  crafts- 
men can  manage  it)  would  be  in  a  pitiable  condition. 

But  the  valuable  thing  in  letters, — that  is,  in  the 
acquainting  oneself  with  the  best  which  has  been 
thought  and  said  in  the  world, — is,  as  we  have  often 
remarked,  the  judgment  which  forms  itself  insensibly 
in  a  fair  mind  along  with  fresh  knowledge ;  and  this 
judgment  almost  any  one  with  a  fair  mind,  who  will 
but  trouble  himself  to  try  and  make  acquaintance 
with  the  best  which  has  been  thought  and  uttered 
in  the  world,  may,  if  he  is  lucky,  hope  to  attain  to. 
For  tliis  judgment  comes  almost  of  itself ;  and  what 
it  displaces  it  displaces  easily  and  naturally,  and 
without  any  turmoil  of  controversial  reasonings.  The 
thing  comes  to  look  differently  to  us,  as  we  look  at  it 
by  the  light  of  fresh  knowledge.  We  are  not  beaten 
from  our  old  opinion  by  logic,  we  are  not  driven  off 
our  ground ; — our  ground  itself  changes  with  us. 

Far  more  of  our  mistakes  come  from  want  of  fresh 
knowledge  than  from  want  of  correct  reasoning;  and, 
therefore,  letters  meet  a  greater  want  in  us  than  does 
logic.  The  idea  of  a  triangle  is  a  definite  and  ascer- 
tained thing,  and  to  deduce  the  properties  of  a 


8  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

triangle  from  it  is  an  affair  of  reasoning.  There  are 
heads  unapt  for  this  sort  of  work,  and  some  of  the 
blundering  to  be  found  in  the  world  is  from  this 
cause.  But  how  far  more  of  the  blundering  to  be 
found  in  the  world  comes  from  people  fancying  that 
some  idea  is  a  definite  and  ascertained  thing,  like  the 
idea  of  a  triangle,  when  it  is  not ;  and  proceeding  to 
deduce  properties  from  it,  and  to  do  battle  about 
them,  when  their  first  start  was  a  mistake !  And 
how  liable  are  people  with  a  talent  for  hard,  abstruse 
reasoning,  to  be  tempted  to  this  mistake !  And 
what  can  clear  up  such  a  mistake  except  a  wide  and 
familiar  acquaintance  with  the  human  spirit  and  its 
productions,  showing  how  ideas  and  terms  arose,  and 
what  is  their  character?  and  this  is  letters  and  history, 
not  logic. 

So  that  minds  with  small  aptitude  for  abstruse 
reasoning  may  yet,  through  letters,  gain  some  hold 
on  sound  judgment  and  useful  knowledge,  and  may 
even  clear  up  blunders  committed,  out  of  their  very 
excess  of  talent,  by  the  athletes  of  logic. 


CHAPTER  I. 

RELIGION   GIVEN. 

WE  have  said  elsewhere1  how  much  it  has  contributed 
to  the  misunderstanding  of  St.  Paul,  that  terms  like 
grace,  new  birth,  justification, — which  he  used  in  a  fluid 
and  passing  way,  as  men  use  terms  in  common 
discourse  or  in  eloquence  and  poetry,  to  describe 
approximately,  but  only  approximately,  what  they 
have  present  before  their  mind,  but  do  not  profess 
that  their  mind  does  or  can  grasp  exactly  or  ade- 
quately,— that  such  terms  people  have  blunderingly 
taken  in  a  fixed  and  rigid  manner,  as  if  they  were 
symbols  with  as  definite  and  fully  grasped  a  meaning 
as  the  names  line  or  angle,  and  proceeded  to  use  them 
on  this  supposition.  Terms,  in  short,  which  with  St. 
Paul  are  literary  terms,  theologians  have  employed  as 
if  they  were  scientific  terms. 

But  if  one  desires  to  deal  with  this  mistake 
thoroughly,  one  must  observe  it  in  that  supreme 
term  with  which  religion  is  filled, — the  term  God. 
The  seemingly  incurable  ambiguity  in  the  mode  of 
employing  this  word  is  at  the  root  of  all  our  religious 
1  Culture  and  Anarchy,  p.  137. 


10  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

differences  and  difficulties.  People  use  it  as  if  it 
stood  for  a  perfectly  definite  and  ascertained  idea, 
from  which  we  might,  without  more  ado,  extract 
propositions  and  draw  inferences,  just  as  we  should 
from  any  other  definite  and  ascertained  idea.  For 
instance,  I  open  a  book  which  controverts  what  its 
author  thinks  dangerous  views  about  religion,  and  I 
read  :  "  Our  sense  of  morality  tells  us  so-and-so ;  our 
sense  of  God,  on  the  other  hand,  tells  us  so-and-so." 
And  again,  "the  impulse  in  man  to  seek  God"  is 
distinguished,  as  if  the  distinction  were  self-evident 
and  explained  itself,  from  "the  impulse  in  man  to 
seek  his  highest  perfection."  Now,  morality  repre- 
sents for  everybody  a  thoroughly  definite  and  ascer- 
tained idea : — the  idea  of  human  conduct  regulated 
in  a  certain  manner.  Everybody,  again,  understands 
distinctly  enough  what  is  meant  by  man's  perfection  : 
— his  reaching  the  best  which  his  powers  and  circum- 
stances allow  him  to  reach.  And  the  word  "God"  is 
used,  in  connection  with  both  these  words,  morality 
and  perfection,  as  if  it  stood  for  just  as  definite  and 
ascertained  an  idea  as  they  do ;  an  idea  drawn  from 
experience,  just  as  the  ideas  are  which  they  stand 
for ;  an  idea  about  which  every  one  was  agreed,  and 
from  which  we  might  proceed  to  argue  and  to  make 
inferences,  with  the  certainty  that,  as  in  the  case  of 
morality  and  perfection,  the  basis  on  which  we  were 
going  every  one  knew  and  granted.  But,  in  truth,  the 
word  "  God  "  is  used  in  most  cases  as  by  no  means  a 
term  of  science  or  exact  knowledge,  but  a  term  of 
poetry  and  eloquence,  a  term  throum  out,  so  to  speak, 


i.J  KKI.NJinX  (JFVEN.  11 

at  a  not  fully  grasped  object  of  the  speaker's  con- 
sciousness, a  literary  term,  in  short;  and  mankind 
mean  different  things  by  it  as  their  consciousness 
differs. 

The  first  question,  then,  is,  how  people  are  using 
the  word;  whether  in  this  literary  way,  or  in  a 
scientific  way.  The  second  question  is,  what,  sup- 
posing them  to  use  the  term  as  one  of  poetry  and 
eloquence,  and  to  import  into  it,  therefore,  a  great 
deal  of  their  own  individual  feelings  and  character, 
is  yet  the  common  substratum  of  idea  on  which,  in 
using  it,  they  all  rest.  For  this  will  then  be,  for 
them,  and  for  us  in  dealing  with  them,  the  real  sense 
of  the  word;  the  sense  in  which  we  can  use  it  for  pur- 
poses of  argument  and  inference  without  ambiguity. 

Strictly  and  formally  the  word  "  God,"  we  now 
learn  from  the  philologists,  means,  like  its  kindred 
Aryan  words,  Theos,  Deus,  and  Deva,  simply  shining  or 
brilliant.  In  a  certain  narrow  way,  therefore,  this  is 
the  one  exact  and  scientific  sense  of  the  word.  It 
was  long  thought,  however,  to  mean  good,  and  so 
Luther  took  it  to  mean  the  best  that  man  knoivs  or  can 
know;  and  in  this  sense,  as  a  matter  of  fact  and 
history,  mankind  constantly  use  the  word.  This  is 
the  common  substratum  of  idea  on  which  men  in 
general,  when  they  use  the  word  God,  rest ;  and  wo 
can  take  this  as  the  word's  real  sense  fairly  enough, 
only  it  does  not  give  us  anything  very  precise. 

But  then  there  is  also  the  scientific  sense  held  by 
theologians,  deduced  from  the  ideas  of  substance, 
identity,  causation,  design,  and  so  on ;  but  taught, 


12  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

they  say,  or  at  least  implied,  in  the  Bible,  and  on 
which  all  the  Bible  rests.  According  to  this  scientific 
and  theological  sense, — which  has  all  the  outward 
appearances,  at  any  rate,  of  great  precision, — God  is 
an  infinite  and  eternal  substance,  and  at  the  same 
time  a  person,  the  great  first  cause,  the  moral  and 
intelligent  governor  of  the  universe;  Jesus  Christ 
consubstantial  with  him ;  and  the  Holy  Ghost  a 
person  proceeding  from  the  other  two.  This  is  the 
sense  for  which,  or  for  portions  of  which,  the  Bishops 
of  Winchester  and  Gloucester  are  so  zealous  to  do 
something. 

Other  people,  however,  who  fail  to  perceive  the 
force  of  such  a  deduction  from  the  abstract  ideas 
above  mentioned,  who  indeed  think  it  quite  hollow, 
but  who  are  told  that  this  sense  is  in  the  Bible,  and 
that  they  must  receive  it  if  they  receive  the  Bible, 
conclude  that  in  that  case  they  had  better  receive 
neither  the  one  nor  the  other.  Something  of  this 
sort  it  was,  no  doubt,  which  made  Professor  Huxley 
tell  the  London  School  Board  lately,  that  "if  these 
islands  had  no  religion  at  all,  it  would  not  enter  into 
his  mind  to  introduce  the  religious  idea  by  the  agency 
of  the  Bible."  Of  such  people  there  are  now  a  great 
many ;  and  indeed  there  could  hardly,  for  those  who 
value  the  Bible,  be  a  greater  example  of  the  sacrifices 
one  is  sometimes  called  upon  to  make  for  the  truth, 
than  to  find  that  for  the  truth  as  held  by  the  Bishops 
of  Winchester  and  Gloucester,  if  it  is  the  truth,  one 
must  sacrifice  the  allegiance  of  so  many  people  to  the 
Bible. 


i.]  RELIGION  GIVEX.  13 

But  surely,  if  there  be  anything  with  which  meta- 
physics have  nothing  to  do,  and  where  a  plain  man, 
without  skill  to  walk  in  the  arduous  paths  of  abstruse 
reasoning,  may  yet  find  himself  at  home,  it  is  religion. 
For  the  object  of  religion  is  conduct ;  and  conduct  is 
really,  however  men  may  overlay  it  with  philosophical 
disquisitions,  the  simplest  thing  in  the  world.  That 
is  to  say,  it  is  the  simplest  thing  in  the  world  as  far 
as  understanding  is  concerned ;  as  regards  doing,  it  is 
the  hardest  thing  in  the  world.  Here  is  the  difficulty, 
—to  do  what  we  very  well  know  ought  to  be  done ; 
and  instead  of  facing  this,  men  have  searched  out 
another  with  which  they  occupy  themselves  by  pre- 
ference,— the  origin  of  what  is  called  the  moral  sense, 
the  genesis  and  physiology  of  conscience,  and  so  on. 
"No  one  denies  that  here,  too,  is  difficulty,  or  that  the 
difficulty  is  a  proper  object  for  the  human  faculties  to 
be  exercised  upon ;  but  the  difficulty  here  is  specula- 
tive. It  is  not  the  difficulty  of  religion,  which  is  a 
practical  one ;  and  it  often  tends  to  divert  the 
attention  from  this.  Yet  surely  the  difficulty  of 
religion  is  great  enough  by  itself,  if  men  would  but 
consider  it,  to  satisfy  the  most  voracious  appetite  for 
difficulties.  It  extends  to  Tightness  in  the  whole 
range  of  what  we  call  conduct ;  in  three -fourths, 
therefore,  at  the  very  lowest  computation,  of  human 
life.  The  only  doubt  is  whether  we  ought  not  to 
make  the  range  of  conduct  wider  still,  and  to  say  it  is 
four-fifths  of  human  life,  or  five-sixths.  But  it  is  better 
to  be  under  the  mark  than  over  it ;  so  let  us  be  content 
with  reckoning  conduct  as  three-fourths  of  human  life. 


14  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

And  to  recognise  in  what  way  conduct  is  this,  let 
us  eschew  all  school-terms,  like  moral  sense,  and  voli- 
tional, and  altruistic,  which  philosophers  employ,  and 
let  us  help  ourselves  by  the  most  palpable  and  plain 
examples.  When  the  rich  man  in  the  Bible-parable 
says  :  "  Soul,  thou  hast  much  goods  laid  up  for  many 
years ;  take  thine  ease,  eat,  drink,  and  be  merry ! " l 
— those  goods  which  he  thus  assigns  as  the  stuff  with 
which  human  life  is  mainly  concerned  (and  so  in 
practice  it  really  is), — those  goods  and  our  dealings 
with  them, — our  taking  our  ease,  eating,  drinking,  being 
merry,  are  the  matter  of  conduct,  the  range  where  it 
is  exercised.  Eating,  drinking,  ease,  pleasure,  money, 
the  intercourse  of  the  sexes,  the  giving  free  swing  to 
one's  temper  and  instincts, — these  are  the  matters 
with  which  conduct  is  concerned,  and  with  which  all 
mankind  know  and  feel  it  to  be  concerned. 

Or,  when  Protagoras  points  out  of  what  things  we 
are,  from  childhood  till  we  die,  being  taught  and 
admonished,  and  says  (but  it  is  lamentable  that  here 
we  have  not  at  hand  Mr.  Jowett,  who  so  excellently 
introduces  the  enchanter  Plato  and  his  personages, 
but  must  use  our  own  words) :  "From  the  time  he 
can  understand  what  is  said  to  him,  nurse,  and  mother, 
and  teacher,  and  father  too,  are  bending  their  efforts 
to  this  end, — to  make  the  child  good;  teaching  and 
showing  him,  as  to  everything  he  has  to  do  or  say, 
how  this  is  right  and  that  not  right,  and  this  is 
honourable  and  that  vile,  and  this  is  holy  and  that 
unholy,  and  this  do  and  that  do  not;" — Protagoras, 
1  Luke  xii.  19. 


I.]  RELIGION  GIYKX.  15 

also,  when,  he  says  this,  bears  his  testimony  to  the 
scope  and  nature  of  conduct,  tells  us  what  conduct  is. 
Or,  once  more,  when  M.  Littre  (and  we  hope  to 
make  our  peace  with  the  Comtists  by  quoting  an 
author  of  theirs  in  preference  to  those  authors  whom 
all  the  British  public  is  now  reading  and  quoting),— 
when  M.  Littre,  in  a  most  ingenious  essay  on  the 
origin  of  morals,  traces  up,  better,  perhaps,  than  any 
one  else,  all  our  impulses  into  two  elementary  instincts, 
the  instinct  of  self-preservation  and  the  reproduc- 
tive instinct, — then  we  take  his  theory  and  we  say, 
that  all  the  impulses  which  can  be  conceived  as  deriv- 
able from  the  instinct  of  self-preservation  in  us  and 
the  reproductive  instinct,  these  terms  being  applied 
in  their  ordinary  sense,  are  the  matter  of  conduct.  It 
is  evident  this  includes,  to  say  no  more,  every  im- 
pulse relating  to  temper,  every  impulse  relating  to 
sensuality ;  and  we  all  know  how  much  that  is. 

How  we  deal  with  these  impulses  is  the  matter  of 
conduct, — how  we  obey,  regulate,  or  restrain  them ; 
that,  and  nothing  else.  Not  whether  M.  Littre's  theory 
is  true  or  false ;  for  whether  it  be  true  or  false,  there 
the  impulses  confessedly  now  are,  and  the  business  of 
conduct  is  to  deal  with  them.  But  it  is  evident,  if 
conduct  deals  with  these,  both  how  important  a  thing 
conduct  is,  and  how  simple  a  thing.  Important, 
because  it  covers  so  large  a  portion  of  human  life,  and 
the  portion  common  to  all  sorts  of  people ;  simple, 
because,  though  there  needs  perpetual  admonition  to 
form  conduct,  the  admonition  is  needed  not  to  deter- 
mine what  we  ought  to  do,  but  to  make  us  do  it. 


16  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

And  as  to  this  simplicity,  all  moralists  are  agreed. 
"Let  any  plain  honest  man,"  says  Bishop  Butler, 
"before  he  engages  in  any  course  of  action"  (he 
means  action  of  the  very  kind  we  call  conduct],  "  ask 
himself:  Is  this  I  am  going  about  right  or  is  it 
wrong  1  is  it  good  or  is  it  evil  ?  I  do  not  in  the  least 
doubt  but  that  this  question  would  be  answered 
agreeably  to  truth  and  virtue  by  almost  any  fair  man 
in  almost  any  circumstance"  And  Bishop  Wilson  says  : 
"Look  up  to  God"  (by  which  he  means  just  this: 
Consult  your  Conscience)  "  at  all  times,  and  you  will, 
as  in  a  glass,  discover  what  is  fit  to  be  done."  And 
the  Preacher's  well-known  sentence  is  exactly  to  the 
same  effect :  "  God  made  man  upright ;  but  they  have 
sought  out  many  inventions,"1 — or,  as  it  more 
correctly  is,  "many  abstruse  reasonings."  Let  us  hold 
fast  to  this,  and  we  shall  find  we  have  a  stay  by  the 
help  of  which  even  poor  weak  men,  with  no  preten- 
sions to  be  logical  athletes,  may  stand  firmly. 

And  so,  when  we  are  asked,  what  is  the  object 
of  religion  1 — let  us  reply  :  Conduct.  And  when  we 
are  asked  further,  what  is  conduct  1 — let  us  answer  : 
Three-fourths  of  life. 

II. 

And  certainly  we  need  not  go  far  about  to  prove 
that  conduct,  or  "righteousness,"  which  is  the  object 
of  religion,  is  in  a  special  manner  the  object  of  Bible- 
religion.  The  word  "  righteousness  "  is  the  master- 
word  of  the  Old  Testament.  Keep  judgment  and  do 
1  Ecclesiastes  vii.  29. 


i.]  RELIGION  GIVEN.  17 


righteousness f  Cease  to  do  evil,  lewrn  to  <lo  well/1 
words  being  taken  in  their  plainest  sense  of  conduct. 
Offer  the  sacrifice,  not  of  victims  and  ceremonies,  as  the 
way  of  the  world  in  religion  then  was,  but :  Offer  the 
sacrifice  of  righteousness  ! 2  The  great  concern  of  the 
Xew  Testament  is  likewise  righteousness,  but  right- 
eousness reached  through  particular  means,  righteous- 
ness by  the  means  of  Jesus  Christ.  A  sentence 
which  sums  up. the  New  Testament  and  assigns  the 
ground  whereon  the  Christian  Church  stands,  is,  as 
we  have  elsewhere  said,3  this :  Let  every  one  that 
nameth  tJie  name  of  Christ  depart  from  iniquity  / 4  If 
we  are  to  take  a  sentence  which  in  like  manner  sums 
up  the  Old  Testament,  such  a  sentence  is  this :  0  ye 
that  love  the  Eternal,  see  that  ye  hate  the  thing  which  is 
evil !  to  him  that  ordereth  his  conversation  right  shall  be 
shown  the  salvation  of  God.5 

But  instantly  there  will  be  raised  the  objection  that 
this  is  morality,  not  religion ;  morality,  ethics,  conduct, 
being  by  many  people,  and  above  all  by  theologians 
carefully  contradistinguished  from  religion,  which  is 
supposed  in  some  special  way  to  be  connected  with 
propositions  about  the  Godhead  of  the  Eternal  Son, 
or  propositions  about  the  personality  of  God,  or  about 
election  or  justification.  Eeligion,  however,  means 
simply  either  a  binding  to  righteousness,  or  else  a 
serious  attending  to  righteousness  and  dwelling  upon 
it.  Which  of  these  two  it  most  nearly  means,  depends 

1  Isaiah  Ivi.  1  ;  i.  16,  17.  2  Psalm  iv.  5. 

3  St.  Paul  and  Protestantism,  p.  134.         4  2  Timothy  ii.  19. 

5  Psalin  xcvii.  10  ;  1.  23. 
VOL.  V.  C 


18  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

upon  the  view  we  take  of  the  word's  derivation ;  but 
it  means  one  of  them,  and  they  are  really  much  the 
same.  And  the  antithesis  between  ethical  and  religious 
is  thus  quite  a  false  one.  Ethical  means  practical,  it 
relates  to  practice  or  conduct  passing  into  habit  or 
disposition.  Religious  also  means  practical,  but 
practical  in  a  still  higher  degree ;  and  the  right 
antithesis  to  both  ethical  and  religious,  is  the  same  as 
the  right  antithesis  to  practical :  namely,  theoretical. 

Now,  propositions  about  the  Godhead  of  the 
Eternal  Son  are  theoretical,  and  they  therefore  are 
very  properly  opposed  to  propositions  which  are  moral 
or  ethical ;  but  they  are  with  equal  propriety  opposed 
to  propositions  which  are  religious.  They  differ  in 
kind  from  what  is  religious,  while  what  is  ethical 
agrees  in  kind  with  it.  But  is  there,  therefore,  no 
difference  between  what  is  ethical,  or  morality,  and 
religion  ?  There  is  a  difference ;  a  difference  of  degree. 
Eeligion,  if  we  follow  the  intention  of  human  thought 
and  human  language  in  the  use  of  the  word,  is  ethics 
heightened,  enkindled,  lit  up  by  feeling ;  the  passage 
from  morality  to  religion  is  made  when  to  morality  is 
applied  emotion.  And  the  true  meaning  of  religion  is 
thus,  not  simply  morality,  but  morality  touched  by  emotion. 
And  this  new  elevation  and  inspiration  of  morality  is 
well  marked  by  the  word  "righteousness."  Conduct  is 
the  word  of  common  life,  morality  is  the  word  of  philoso- 
phical disquisition,  righteousness  is  the  word  of  religion. 

Some  people,  indeed,  are  for  calling  all  high 
thought  and  feeling  by  the  name  of  religion ;  accord- 
ing to  that  saying  of  Goethe  :  "  He  who  has  art  and 


i.l  KKLIGION  GIVI.N.  19 

science,  has  also  religion."  But  let  us  use  words  as 
mankind  generally  use  them.  We  may  call  art  and 
science  touched  by  emotion  religion,  if  we  will ;  as  we 
may  make  the  instinct  of  self-preservation,  into  which 
M.  Littre  traces  up  all  our  private  affections,  include 
the  perfecting  ourselves  by  the  study  of  what  is 
beautiful  in  art;  and  the  reproductive  instinct,  into 
which  he  traces  up  all  our  social  affections,  include 
the  perfecting  mankind  by  political  science.  But 
men  have  not  yet  got  to  that  stage,  when  we  think 
much  of  either  their  private  or  their  social  affections 
at  all,  except  as  exercising  themselves  in  conduct; 
neither  do  we  yet  think  of  religion  as  otherwise  exer- 
cising itself.  When  mankind  speak  of  religion,  they 
have  before  their  mind  an  activity  engaged,  not  with 
the  whole  of  life,  but  with  that  three-fourths  of  life 
which  is  conduct.  This  is  wide  enough  range  for  one 
word,  surely ;  but  at  any  rate,  let  us  at  present  limit 
ourselves  in  the  use  of  the  word  religion  as  mankind  do. 
And  if  some  one  now  asks  :  But  what  is  this  appli- 
cation of  emotion  to  morality,  and  by  what  marks 
may  we  know  it  1 — we  can  quite  easily  satisfy  him ; 
not,  indeed,  by  any  disquisition  of  our  own,  but  in  a 
much  better  way,  by  examples.  "  By  the  dispensation 
of  Providence  to  mankind,"  says  Quintilian,  "  goodness 
gives  men  most  satisfaction." l  That  is  morality. 
"The  path  of  the  just  is  as  the  shining  light  which 
shineth  more  and  more  unto  the  perfect  day."2 
That  is  morality  touched  with  emotion,  or  religion. 

1  ' '  Dedit  hoc  Providentia  hominibus  munus,  ut  honesta  magis 
juvarent."  a  Tro verbs  iv.  18. 


20  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

"Hold  off  from  sensuality,"  says  Cicero ;  "for,  if  you 
have  given  yourself  up  to  it,  you  will  find  yourself 
unable  to  think  of  anything  else." l  That  is  morality. 
"Blessed  are  the  pure  in  heart,"  says  Jesus  Christ,  "  for 
they  shall  see  God."2  That  is  religion.  "We  all  want 
to  live  honestly,  but  cannot,"  says  the  Greek  maxim- 
maker.3  That  is  morality.  "  0  wretched  man  that  I 
am,  who  shall  deliver  me  from  the  body  of  this  death ! " 
says  St.  Paul.4  That  is  religion.  "Would  thou  wert 
of  as  good  conversation  in  deed  as  in  word ! " 5  is 
morality.  "  Not  every  one  that  saith  unto  me,  Lord, 
Lord,  shall  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  Heaven,  but  he 
that  doeth  the  will  of  my  Father  which  is  in  Heaven,"6 
is  religion.  "  Live  as  you  were  meant  to  live  ! "  7  is 
morality.  "Lay  hold  on  eternal  life  !" 8  is  religion. 
.  Or  we  may  take  the  contrast  within  the  bounds  of 
the  Bible  itself.  "  Love  not  sleep,  lest  thou  come  to 
poverty,"  is  morality ;  but,  "  My  meat  is  to  do  the 
will  of  him  that  sent  me,  and  to  finish  his  work,"  is 
religion.9  Or  we  may  even  observe  a  third  stage 
between  these  two  stages,  which  shows  to  us  the 
transition  from  one  to  the  other.  "If  thou  givest  thy 
soul  the  desires  that  please  her,  she  will  make  thee  a 
laughing-stock  to  thine  enemies  ;"10 — that  is  morality. 

1  "Sis  a  venereis  ainoribus  aversus  ;  quibus  si  te  dedideris, 
non  aliud  quidquam  possis  cogitare  quam  illud  quod  diligis. " 

2  Matthew  v.  8. 

3  Ge'Xo/xej/  /caXws  ffiv  irdvres,  dXX'  ou  Swd/^eBa. 

4  Romans  vii.  24. 

5  Et'0'  fjffda  (r&typuv  £pya  rots  \6yois  ura. 

6  Matthew  vii.  21.  7  Zrj<rov  KO.TO,  <t>v<nv. 
8  1  Tim.  vi.  12.                   9  Prov.  xx.  13  ;  John  iv.  34. 

10  Ecclesiasticus  xviii.  31. 


I.]  RELIGION  GIVEN.  21 

"He  that  rcsisteth  pleasure  crowneth  his  life;"1— 
that  is  morality  with  the  tone  heightened,  passing,  or 
trying  to  pass,  into  religion.  "Flesh  and  blood 
cannot  inherit  the  kingdom  of  God;"2 — there  the 
passage  is  made,  and  we  have  religion.  Our  religious 
examples  are  here  all  taken  from  the  Bible,  and  from 
the  Bible  such  examples  can  best  be  taken ;  but  we 
might  also  find  them  elsewhere.  "Oh  that  my  lot 
might  lead  me  in  the  path  of  holy  innocence  of 
thought  and  deed,  the  path  which  august  laws  ordain, 
laws  which  in  the  highest  heaven  had  their  birth, 
neither  did  the  race  of  mortal  man  beget  them,  nor 
shall  oblivion  ever  put  them  to  sleep ;  the  power  of 
God  is  mighty  in  them,  and  groweth  not  old  !"  That 
is  from  Sophocles,  but  it  is  as  much  religion  as  any 
of  the  things  which  we  have  quoted  as  religious. 
Like  them,  it  is  not  the  mere  enjoining  of  conduct, 
but  it  is  this  enjoining  touched,  strengthened,  and 
almost  transformed,  by  the  addition  of  feeling. 

So  what  is  meant  by  the  application  of  emotion  to 
morality  has  now,  it  is  to  be  hoped,  been  made  clear. 
The  next  question  will  probably  be :  But  how  does 
one  get  the  application  made ?  Why,  how  does  one 
get  to  feel  much  about  any  matter  whatever?  By 
dwelling  upon  it,  by  staying  our  thoughts  upon  it,  by 
having  it  perpetually  in  our  mind.  The  very  words 
mind,  memory,  remain,  come,  probably,  all  from  the 
same  root,  from  the  notion  of  staying,  attending. 
Possibly  even  the  word  man  comes  from  the  same ; 
so  entirely  does  the  idea  of  humanity,  of  intelligence, 
1  JScclcsiasticus  xix.  5.  -  1  Corinthians  xv.  50. 


22  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

of  looking  before  and  after,  of  raising  oneself  out  of 
the  flux  of  things,  rest  upon  the  idea  of  steadying 
oneself,  concentrating  oneself,  making  order  in  the 
chaos  of  one's  impressions,  by  attending  to  one  im- 
pression rather  than  the  other.  The  rules  of  conduct, 
of  morality,  were  themselves,  philosophers  suppose, 
reached  in  this  way ; — the  notion  of  a  whole  self  as 
opposed  to  a  partial  self,  a  best  self  to  an  inferior,  to 
a  momentary  self  a  permanent  self  requiring  the 
restraint  of  impulses  a  man  would  naturally  have 
indulged; — because,  by  attending  to  his  life,  man 
found  it  had  a  scope  beyond  the  wants  of  the  present 
moment.  Suppose  it  was  so;  then  the  first  man 
who,  as  "a  being,"  comparatively,  "of  a  large 
discourse,  looking  before  and  after,"  controlled  the 
native,  instantaneous,  mechanical  impulses  of  the 
instinct  of  self-preservation,  controlled  the  native, 
instantaneous,  mechanical  impulses  of  the  reproductive 
instinct,  had  morality  revealed  to  him. 

But  there  is  a  long  way  from  this  to  that  habitual 
dwelling  on  the  rules  thus  reached,  that  constant 
turning  them  over  in  the  mind,  that  near  and  lively 
experimental  sense  of  their  beneficence,  which  com- 
municates emotion  to  our  thought  of  them,  and  thus 
incalculably  heightens  their  powers.  And  the  more 
mankind  attended  to  the  claims  of  that  part  of  our 
nature  which  does  not  belong  to  conduct,  properly  so 
called,  or  to  morality  (and  we  have  seen  that,  after 
all,  about  one-fourth  of  our  nature  is  in  this  case),  the 
more  they  would  have  distractions  to  take  off  their 
thoughts  from  those  moral  conclusions  which  all  races 


I.]  EELIGION  GIVEN.  23 

of  men,  one  may  say,  seem  to  have  reached,  and  to 
prevent  these  moral  conclusions  from  being  quickened 
by  emotion,  and  thus  becoming  religious. 

III. 

Only  with  one  people, — the  people  from  whom  we 
get  the  Bible, — these  distractions  did  not  happen. 

The  Old  Testament,  nobody  will  ever  deny,  is 
filled  with  the  word  and  thought  of  righteousness. 
"  In  the  way  of  righteousness  is  life,  and  in  the  path- 
way thereof  is  no  death;"  "Righteousness  tendeth  to 
life;"  "He  that  pursueth  evil  pursueth  it  to  his  own 
death;"  "The  way  of  transgressors  is  hard;"- 
nobody  will  deny  that  those  texts  may  stand  for  the 
fundamental  and  ever -recurring  idea  of  the  Old 
Testament.  ^  No  people  ever  felt  so  strongly  as  the 
people  of  the  Old  Testament,  the  Hebrew  people, 
that  conduct  is  three-fourths  of  our  life  and  its  largest 
concern.  No  people  ever  felt  so  strongly  that 
succeeding,  going  right,  hitting  the  mark  in  this  great 
concern,  was  the  way  of  peace,  the  highest  possible 
satisfaction.  "  He  that  keepeth  the  law,  happy  is  he ; 
its  ways  are  ways  of  pleasantness,  and  all  its  paths 
are  peace ;  if  thou  hadst  walked  in  its  ways,  thou 
shouldst  have  dwelt  in  peace  for  ever  !"2  Jeshurun, 
one  of  the  ideal  names  of  their  race,  is  the  upright ; 
Israel,  the  other  and  greater,  is  the  wrestler  with  God, 
he  who  has  known  the  contention  and  strain  it  costs 
to  stand  upright.  That  mysterious  personage  by 

1  Prov.  xii.  28  ;  xi.  19 ;  xiii.  15. 

2  Prov.  xxix.  18  ;  iii.  17.      Baruch  iii.  13. 


24  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

whom  their  history  first  touches  the  hill  of  Sion,  is 
Melchisedek,  the  righteous  king.  Their  holy  city, 
Jerusalem,  is  the  foundation,  or  vision,  or  inheritance, 
of  that  which  righteousness  achieves, — peace.  The 
law  of  righteousness  was  such  an  object  of  attention 
to  them,  that  its  words  were  to  "be  in  their  heart, 
and  thou  shalt  teach  them  diligently  unto  thy  children, 
and  shalt  talk  of  them  when  thou  sittest  in  thine 
house,  and  when  thou  walkest  by  the  way,  and  when 
thou  liest  down,  and  when  thou  risest  up."1  That 
they  might  keep  them  ever  in  mind,  they  wore  them, 
went  about  with  them,  made  talismans  of  them . 
"Bind  them  upon  thy  fingers,  bind  them  about  thy 
neck;  write  them  upon  the  table  of  thine  heart!"2 
"  Take  fast  hold  of  her,"  they  said  of  the  doctrine  of 
conduct,  or  righteousness,  "let  her  not  go  !  keep  her, 
for  she  is  thy  life  !"3 

People  who  thus  spoke  of  righteousness  could  not 
but  have  had  their  minds  long  and  deeply  engaged 
with  it ;  much  more  than  the  generality  of  mankind, 
who  have  nevertheless,  as  we  saw,  got  as  far  as  the 
notion  of  morals  or  conduct.  And,  if  they  were  so 
deeply  attentive  to  it,  one  thing  could  not  fail  to 
strike  them.  It  is  this:  the  very  great  part  in 
righteousness  which  belongs,  we  may  say,  to  not 
ourselves.  In  the  first  place,  we  did  not  make  our- 
selves and  our  nature,  or  conduct  as  the  object  of 
three-fourths  of  that  nature ;  we  did  not  provide  that 
happiness  should  follow  conduct,  as  it  undeniably 

1  Deuteronomy  vi.  6,  7.  2  Prov.  vii.  3  ;  iii.  3. 

3  Prov.  iv.  13. 


I.]  RELIGION  GIVEN.  25 

does ;  that  the  sense  of  succeeding,  going  right,  hit-^ 
ting  the  mark,  in  conduct,  should  give  satisfaction, 
and  a  very  high  satisfaction,  just  as  really  as  the 
sense  of  doing  well  in  his  work  gives  pleasure  to  a 
poet  or  painter,  or  accomplishing  what  he  tries  gives 
pleasure  to  a  man  who  is  learning  to  ride  or  to  shoot ; 
or  as  satisfying  his  hunger,  also,  gives  pleasure  to  a 
man  who  is  hungry. 

All  this  we  did  not  make ;  and,  in  the  next  place, 
our  dealing  with  it  at  all,  when  it  is  made,  is  not 
wholly,  or  even  nearly  wholly,  in  our  own  power. 
Our  conduct  is  capable,  irrespective  of  what  we  can 
ourselves  certainly  answer  for,  of  almost  infinitely 
different  degrees  of  force  and  energy  in  the  perform- 
ance of  it,  of  lucidity  and  vividness  in  the  perception 
of  it,  of  fulness  in  the  satisfaction  from  it ;  and  these 
degrees  may  vary  from  day  to  day,  and  quite  incal- 
culably. Facilities  and  felicities, — whence  do  they 
come "?  suggestions  and  stimulations, — where  do  they 
tend  ?  hardly  a  day  passes  but  we  have  some  experi- 
ence of  them.  And  so  Henry  More  was  led  to  say, 
that  "  there  was  something  about  us  that  knew  better, 
often,  what  we  would  be  at  than  we  ourselves."  For 
instance :  every  one  can  understand  how  health  and 
freedom  from  pain  may  give  energy  for  conduct,  and 
how  a  neuralgia,  suppose,  may  diminish  it.  It  does 
not  depend  on  ourselves,  indeed,  whether  we  have 
the  neuralgia  or  not,  but  we  can  understand  its  im- 
pairing our  spirit.  But  the  strange  thing  is,  that  with 
the  same  neuralgia  we  may  find  ourselves  one  day  with- 
out spirit  and  energy  for  conduct,  and  another  day  with 


LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

them.  So  that  we  may  most  truly  say:  "Left  to 
ourselves,  we  sink  and  perish ;  visited,  we  lift  up  our 
heads  and  live."1  And  we  may  well  give  ourselves,  in 
grateful  and  devout  self-surrender,  to  that  by  which 
we  are  thus  visited.  So  much  is  there  incalculable, 
so  much  that  belongs  to  not  ourselves,  in  conduct ;  and 
the  more  we  attend  to  conduct,  and  the  more  we 
value  it,  the  more  we  shall  feel  this. 

The  not  ourselves,  which  is  in  us  and  in  the  world 
around  us,  has  almost  everywhere,  as  far  as  we  can  see, 
struck  the  minds  of  men  as  they  awoke  to  conscious- 
ness, and  has  inspired  them  with  awe.  Every  one 
knows  how  the  mighty  natural  objects  which  most 
took  their  regards  became  the  objects  to  which  this 
awe  addressed  itself.  Our  very  word  God  is  a  remini- 
scence of  these  times,  when  men  invoked  "The 
Brilliant  on  high,"  sublime  hoc  candens  quod  invocent 
omnes  Jovem,  as  the  power  representing  to  them  that 
which  transcended  the  limits  of  their  narrow  selves, 
and  that  by  which  they  lived  and  moved  and  had 
their  being.  Every  one  knows  of  what  differences  of 
operation  men's  dealing  with  this  power  has  in 
different  places  and  times  shown  itself  capable ;  how 
here  they  have  been  moved  by  the  not  ourselves  to  a 
cruel  terror,  there  to  a  timid  religiosity,  there  again 
to  a  play  of  imagination;  almost  always,  however, 
connecting  with  it,  by  some  string  or  other,  conduct. 

But  we  are  not  writing  a  history  of  religion ;  we 
are  only  tracing  its  effect  on  the  language  of  the  men 

1  "Relicti  mergimur  et  periimis,  visitati  vero  erigimur  et 
vivimns." 


I.]  RELIGION  GIVEN.  27 

from  whom  we  get  the  Bible.  At  the  time  they 
produced  those  documents  which  give  to  the  Old 
Testament  its  power  and  its  true  character,  the  not 
ourselves  which  weighed  upon  the  mind  of  Israel,  and 
engaged  its  awe,  was  the  not  ourselves  by  which  we  get 
the  sense  for  righteousness,  and  whence  we  find  the  help 
to  do  right.  This  conception  was  indubitably  what 
lay  at  the  bottom  of  that  remarkable  change  which 
under  Moses,  at  a  certain  stage  of  their  religious 
history,  befell  the  Hebrew  people's  mode  of  naming 
God. x  This  was  what  they  intended  in  that  name, 
which  we  wrongly  convey,  either  without  translation, 
by  Jehovah,  which  gives  us  the  notion  of  a  mere 
mythological  deity,  or  by  a  wrong  translation,  Lord, 
which  gives  us  the  notion  of  a  magnified  and  non- 
natural  man.  The  name  they  used  was  :  The  Eternal. 
Philosophers  dispute  whether  moral  ideas,  as  they 
call  them,  the  simplest  ideas  of  conduct  and  righteous- 
ness which  now  seem  instinctive,  did  not  all  grow, 
were  not  once  inchoate,  embryo,  dubious,  unformed.2 
That  may  have  been  so;  the  question  is  an  interesting 
one  for  science.  But  the  interesting  question  for 
conduct  is  whether  those  ideas  are  unformed  or 
formed  now.  They  are  formed  now ;  and  they  were 
formed  when  the  Hebrews  named  the  power,  out  of 
themselves,  which  pressed  upon  their  spirit :  The 
Eternal.  Probably  the  life  of  Abraham,  the  friend  of 
God,  however  imperfectly  the  Bible  traditions  by 

1  See  Exodus  iii.  14. 

8  "Qu'est-ce-que  la  nature? "says  Pascal:  "pent -tire  une 
premiere  coutume,  comme  la  coutume  est  une  seconde  nature. " 


28  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

themselves  convey  it  to  us,  was  a  decisive  step  for- 
wards in  the  development  of  these  ideas  of  righteous- 
ness. Probably  this  was  the  moment  when  such 
ideas  became  fixed  and  ruling  for  the  Hebrew  people, 
and  marked  it  permanently  off  from  all  others  who 
had  not  made  the  same  step.  But  long  before  the 
first  beginnings  of  recorded  history,  long  before  the 
oldest  word  of  Bible  literature,  these  ideas  must  have 
been  at  work.  We  know  it  by  the  result,  although 
they  may  have  for  a  long  while  been  but  rudimentary. 
In  Israel's  earliest  history  and  earliest  literature, 
under  the  name  of  Eloah,  Elohim,  The  Mighty,  there 
may  have  lain  and  matured,  there  did  lie  and  mature, 
ideas  of  God  more  as  a  moral  power,  more  as  a  power 
connected,  above  everything,  with  conduct  and  right- 
eousness, than  were  entertained  by  other  races.  Not 
only  can  we  judge  by  the  result  that  this  must  have 
been  so,  but  we  can  see  that  it  was  so.  Still  their 
name,  The  Mighty,  does  not  in  itself  involve  any  true 
and  deep  religious  ideas,  any  more  than  our  name, 
The  Shining.  With  The  Eternal  it  is  otherwise.  For 
what  did  they  mean  by  the  Eternal ;  the  Eternal 
what?  The  Eternal  cause?  Alas,  these  poor  people 
were  not  Archbishops  of  York.  They  meant  the 
Eternal  righteous,  who  loveth  righteousness.  They  had 
dwelt  upon  the  thought  of  conduct  and  right  and 
wrong,  till  the  not  ourselves  which  is  in  us  and  all 
around  us,  became  to  them  adorable  eminently  and 
altogether  as  a  power  which  makes  for  righteousness; 
which  makes  for  it  unchangeably  and  eternally,  and 
is  therefore  called  The  Eternal. 


I.]  RELIGION  GIVEN.  29 

There  is  not  a  particle  of  metaphysics  in  their  use 
of  this  name,  any  more  than  in  their  conception  of  the 
not  oitrsclrcx  to  which  they  attached  it.  Both  came  to 
them  not  from  abstruse  reasoning  but  from  experience, 
and  from  experience  in  the  plain  region  of  conduct. 
Theologians  with  metaphysical  heads  render  Israel's 
Eti-rnal  by  the  self -existent,  and  Israel's  not  ourselves  by 
the  absolute,  and  attribute  to  Israel  their  own  subtleties. 
According  to  them,  Israel  had  his  head  full  of  the 
necessity  of  a  first  cause,  and  therefore  said,  The 
Eternal ;  as,  again,  they  imagine  him  looking  out  into 
the  world,  noting  everywhere  the  marks  of  design 
and  adaptation  to  his  wants,  and  reasoning  out  and 
inferring  thence  the  fatherhood  of  God.  All  these 
fancies  come  from  an  excessive  turn  for  reasoning, 
and  a  neglect  of  observing  men's  actual  course  of 
thinking  and  way  of  using  words.  Israel,  at  this 
stage  when  The  Eternal  was  revealed  to  him,  inferred 
nothing,  reasoned  out  nothing;  he  felt  and  experi- 
enced. When  he  begins  to  speculate,  in  the  schools 
of  Eabbinism,  he  quickly  shows  how  much  less  native 
talent  than  the  Bishops  of  Winchester  and  Gloucester 
he  has  for  this  perilous  business.  Happily,  when  The 
Eternal  was  revealed  to  him,  he  had  not  yet  begun  to 
speculate. 

Israel  personified,  indeed,  his  Eternal,  for  he  was 
strongly  moved,  he  was  an  orator  and  poet.  Man 
never  knows  how  anthropomorphic  he  is,  says  Goethe,  and 
so  man  tends  always  to  represent  everything  under  his 
own  figure.  In  poetry  and  eloquence  man  may  and 
must  follow  this  tendency,  but  in  science  it  often  leads 


30  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

him  astray.  Israel,  however,  did  not  scientifically 
predicate  personality  of  God ;  he  would  not  even  have 
had  a  notion  what  was  meant  by  it.  He  called  him 
the  maker  of  all  things,  who  gives  drink  to  all  out  of 
his  pleasures  as  out  of  a  river ;  but  he  was  led  to  this 
by  no  theory  of  a  first  cause.  The  grandeur  of  the 
spectacle  given  by  the  world,  the  grandeur  of  the  sense 
of  its  all  being  not  ourselves,  being  above  and  beyond 
ourselves  and  immeasurably  dwarfing  us,  a  man  of 
imagination  instinctively  personifies  as  a  single,  mighty, 
living  and  productive  power ;  as  Goethe  tells  us  that 
the  words  which  rose  naturally  to  his  lips,  when  he 
stood  on  the  top  of  the  Brocken,  were :  "  Lord,  what  is 
man,  that  thou  mindest  him,  or  the  son  of  man,  that 
thou  makest  account  of  him?" 1  But  Israel's  confess- 
ing and  extolling  of  this  power  came  not  even  from  his 
imaginative  feeling,  but  came  first  from  his  gratitude 
for  righteousness.  To  one  who  knows  what  conduct 
is,  it  is  a  joy  to  be  alive ;  and  the  not  ourselves,  which 
by  bringing  forth  for  us  righteousness  makes  our 
happiness,  working  just  in  the  same  sense,  brings 
forth  this  glorious  world  to  be  righteous  in.  That  is 
the  notion  at  the  bottom  of  a  Hebrew's .  praise  of  a 
Creator;  and  if  we  attend,  we  can  see  this  quite 
clearly.  Wisdom  and  understanding  mean,  for  Israel, 
the  love  of  order,  of  righteousness.  Eighteousness, 
order,  conduct,  is  for  Israel  at  once  the  source  of  all 
man's  happiness,  and  at  the  same  time  the  very 
essence  of  The  Eternal.  The  great  work  of  the 
Eternal  is  the  foundation  of  this  order  in  man,  the 
1  Psalm  cxliv.  3. 


I.]  RELIGION  GIVEN.  31 

implanting  in  mankind  of  his  own  love  of  righteous- 
ness, his  own  spirit,  his  own  wisdom  and  understanding; 
and  it  is  only  as  a  farther  and  natural  working  of 
this  energy  that  Israel  conceives  the  establishment 
of  order  in  the  world,  or  creation.  "  To  depart  from 
evil,  that  is  understanding !  Happy  is  the  man  that 
findeth  wisdom,  and  the  man  that  getteth  understand- 
ing. The  Sternal  by  wisdom  hath  founded  the  earth,  "by 
understanding  hath  he  established  the  heavens;"1  and  so 
the  Bible- writer  passes  into  the  account  of  creation. 
It  all  comes  to  him  from  the  idea  of  righteousness. 

And  it  is  the  same  with  all  the  language  our 
Hebrew  religionist  uses.  God  is  a  father,  because  the 
power  in  and  around  us,  which  makes  for  righteous- 
ness, is  indeed  best  described  by  the  name  of  this 
authoritative  but  yet  tender  and  protecting  relation. 
So,  too,  with  the  intense  fear  and  abhorrence  of 
idolatry.  Conduct,  righteousness,  is,  above  all,  a 
matter  of  inward  motion  and  rule.  No  sensible  forms 
can  represent  it,  or  help  us  to  it ;  such  attempts  at 
representation  can  only  distract  us  from  it.  So,  too, 
with  the  sense  of  the  oneness  of  God.  "  Hear,  0 
Israel !  The  Lord  our  God  is  one  Lord." 2  People 
think  that  in  this  unity  of  God, — this  monotheistic 
idea,  as  they  call  it, — they  have  certainly  got  meta- 
physics at  last.  They  have  got  nothing  of  the  kind. 
The  monotheistic  idea  of  Israel  is  simply  seriousness. 
There  are,  indeed,  many  aspects  of  the  not  ourselves  ; 
but  Israel  regarded  one  aspect  of  it  only,  that  by 
which  it  makes  for  righteousness.  He  had  the 
1  Prov.  iii.  13-20.  a  Deut.  vi.  4. 


32  LITERATUEE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

advantage,  to  be  sure,  that  with  this  aspect  three- 
fourths  of  human  life  is  concerned.  But  there  are 
other  aspects  which  may  be  set  in  view.  "  Frail  and 
striving  mortality,"  says  the  elder  Pliny  in  a  noble 
passage,  "mindful  of  its  own  weakness,  has  dis- 
tinguished these  aspects  severally,  so  as  for  each  man 
to  be  able  to  attach  himself  to  the  divine  by  this  or 
that  part,  according  as  he  has  most  need."1  That  is 
an  apology  for  polytheism,  as  answering  to  man's 
many-sidedness.  But  Israel  felt  that  being  thus 
many-sided  degenerated  into  a,n  imaginative  play, 
pud  bewildered  what  Israel  recognised  as  our  sole 
religious  consciousness, — the  consciousness  of  right. 
"  Let  thine  eyelids  look  right  on,  and  let  thine  eyelids 
look  straight  before  thee  ;  turn  not  to  the  right  hand 
nor  to  the  left ;  remove  thy  foot  from  evil ! "  2 

For  does  not  Ovid  say,3  in  excuse  for  the  immorality 
of  his  verses,  that  the  sight  and  mention  of  the  gods 
themselves, — the  rulers  of  human  life, — often  raised 
immoral  thoughts  1  And  so  the  sight  and  mention  of 
all  aspects  of  the  not  ourselves  must.  Yet  how  tempt- 
ing are  many  of  these  aspects !  Even  at  this  time  of 
day,  the  grave  authorities  of  the  University  of  Cam- 
bridge are  so  struck  by  one  of  them,  that  of  pleasure, 

1  "  Fragilis  et  laboriosa  mortalitas  in  partes  ista  digessit,  infir- 
mitatis  suse  raemor,  ut  portionibus  coleret  quisque,  quo  maxime 
indigeret." — Nat.  Hist.  ii.  5. 

2  Prov.  iv.  25,  27. 

3  Tristia  ii.  287  : — 

"  Quis  locus  est  templis  augustior  ?  hsec  quoque  vitet 

In  culpam  si  qua  est  ingeniosa  suam.  " 
See  the  whole  passage. 


i.]  RELIGION  GIVEN.  33 

life  and  fecundity, — of  the  hominum  divomque  volupias, 
alma  Venus, — that  they  set  it  publicly  up  as  an  object 
for  their  scholars  to  fix  their  minds  upon,  and  to 
compose  verses  in  honour  of.  That  is  all  very  well 
at  present ;  but  with  this  natural  bent  in  the  authori- 
ties of  the  University  of  Cambridge,  and  in  the  Indo- 
European  race  to  which  they  belong,  where  would 
they  be  now  if  it  had  not  been  for  Israel,  and  for  the 
stern  check  which  Israel  put  upon  the  glorification 
and  divinisation  of  this  natural  bent  of  mankind,  this 
attractive  aspect  of  the  not  ourselves?  Perhaps  going  in 
procession,  Vice-Chancellor,  bedels,  masters,  scholars, 
and  all,  in  spite  of  their  Professor  of  Moral  Philosophy, 
to  the  temple  of  Aphrodite !  Nay,  and  very  likely 
Mr.  Birks  himself,  his  brows  crowned  with  myrtle 
and  scarcely  a  shade  of  melancholy  on  his  countenance, 
would  have  been  going  along  with  them  !  It  is  Israel 
and  his  seriousness  that  have  saved  the  authorities  of 
the  University  of  Cambridge  from  carrying  their  divini- 
sation of  pleasure  to  these  lengths,  or  from  making 
more  of  it,  indeed,  than  a  mere  passing  intellectual 
play ;  and  even  this  play  Israel  would  have  beheld 
with  displeasure,  saying :  0  turn  away  mine  eyes  lest 
they  behold  vanity,  but  quicken  Thou  me  in  thy  way/1 
So  earnestly  and  exclusively  were  Israel's  regards 
bent  on  one  aspect  of  the  not  ourselves :  its  aspect  as  a 
power  making  for  conduct,  righteousness.  Israel's 
Eternal  was  the  Eternal  which  says  :  "To  depart  from 
evil,  that  is  understanding !  Be  ye  holy,  for  I  am 
holy!"  '  Now,  as  righteousness  is  but  a  heightened 

1  Psalm  cxix.  37. 
VOL.  V.  D 


34  LITERATURE  AND  DOQMA.  [CHAP. 

conduct,  so  holiness  is  but  a  heightened  righteousness; 
a  more  finished,  entire,  and  awe-filled  righteousness. 
It  was  such  a  righteousness  which  was  Israel's  ideal ; 
and  therefore  it  was  that  Israel  said,  not  indeed  what 
our  Bibles  make  him  say,  but  this  :  "  Hear,  0  Israel ! 
The  Eternal  is  our  God,  The  Eternal  alone" 

And  in  spite  of  his  turn  for  personification,  his 
want  of  a  clear  boundary-line  between  poetry  and 
science,  his  inaptitude  to  express  even  abstract  notions 
by  other  than  highly  concrete  terms, — in  spite  of  these 
scientific  disadvantages,  or  rather,  perhaps,  because  of 
them,  because  he  had  no  talent  for  abstruse  reasoning 
to  lead  him  astray, — the  spirit  and  tongue  of  Israel 
kept  a  propriety,  a  reserve,  a  sense  of  the  inadequacy 
of  language  in  conveying  man's  ideas  of  God,  which 
contrast  strongly  with  the  licence  of  affirmation  in 
our  Western  theology.  "The  high  and  holy  One 
that  inhabiteth  eternity,  whose  name  is  holy,"1  is 
far  more  proper  and  felicitous  language  than  "the 
moral  and  intelligent  Governor  of  the  universe," 
just  because  it  far  less  attempts  to  be  precise,  but 
keeps  to  the  language  of  poetry  and  does  not  essay 
the  language  of  science.  As  he  had  developed  his 
idea  of  God  from  personal  experience,  Israel  knew 
what  we,  who  have  developed  our  idea  from  his 
words  about  it,  so  often  are  ignorant  of :  that  his 
words  were  but  thrown  out  at  a  vast  object  of  con- 
sciousness, which  he  could  not  fully  grasp,  and  which 
he  apprehended  clearly  by  one  point  alone, — that  it 
made  for  the  great  concern  of  life,  conduct.  How 
1  Isaiah  Ivii.  15. 


i.]  RELIGION  GIVEN.  35 

little  we  know  of  it  besides,  how  impenetrable  is  the 
course  of  its  ways  with  us,  how  we  are  baffled  in  our 
attempts  to  name  and  describe  it,  how,  when  we 
personify  it  and  call  it  "the  moral  and  intelligent 
( Governor  of  the  universe,"  we  presently  find  it  not  to 
be  a  person  as  man  conceives  of  person,  nor  moral  as 
man  conceives  of  moral,  nor  intelligent  as  man  con- 
ceives of  intelligent,  nor  a  governor  as  man  conceives 
of  governors, — all  this,  which  scientific  theology  loses 
sight  of,  Israel,  who  had  but  poetry  and  eloquence, 
and  no  system,  and  who  did  not  mind  contradicting 
himself,  knew.  "Is  it  any  pleasure  to  the  Almighty, 
that  thou  art  righteous  ?"1  What  a  blow  to  our  ideal 
of  that  magnified  and  non-natural  man,  "the  moral 
and  intelligent  Governor  ! "  Say  what  we  can  about 
God,  say  our  best,  we  have  yet,  Israel  knew,  to  add 
instantly :  "  Lo,  these  are  parts  of  his  ways ;  but  how 
little  a  portion  is  heard  of  him/"2  Yes,  indeed,  Israel 
remembered  that  far  better  than  our  bishops  do. 
"Canst  thou  by  searching  find  out  God;  canst  thou 
find  out  the  perfection  of  the  Almighty  1  It  is  more 
high  than  heaven,  what  canst  thou  do  ?  deeper  than 
hell,  what  canst  thou  know?"3 

Will  it  be  said,  experience  might  also  have  shown 
to  Israel  a  not  ourselves  which  did  not  make  for  his 
happiness,  but  rather  made  against  it,  baffled  his 
claims  to  it1?  But  no  man,  as  we  have  elsewhere^ 
remarked,4  who  simply  follows  his  own  consciousness, 
is  aware  of  any  claims,  any  rights,  whatever;  what 

1  Job  xxii.  3.  2  Job  xxvi.  14.  3  Job  xi.  7,  8. 

4  Culture  and  Anarchy,  p.  165. 


36  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

he  gets  of  good  makes  him  thankful,  what  he  gets  of 
ill  seems  to  him  natural.  His  simple  spontaneous 
feeling  is  well  expressed  by  that  saying  of  Izaak 
Walton  :  "Every  misery  that  I  miss  is  a  new  mercy, 
and  therefore  let  us  be  thankful."  It  is  true,  the  not 
ourselves  of  which  we  are  thankfully  conscious  we 
inevitably  speak  of  and  speak  to  as  a  man;  for 
"man  never  knows  how  anthropomorphic  he  is." 
And  as  time  proceeds,  imagination  and  reasoning 
keep  working  upon  this  substructure,  and  build  from 
it  a  magnified  and  non-natural  man.  Attention  is 
then  drawn,  afterwards,  to  causes  outside  ourselves 
which  seem  to  make  for  sin  and  suffering ;  and  then 
either  these  causes  have  to  be  reconciled  by  some 
highly  ingenious  scheme  with  the  magnified  and  non- 
natural  man's  power,  or  a  second  magnified  and 
non-natural  man  has  to  be  supposed,  who  pulls  the 
contrary  way  to  the  first.  So  arise  Satan  and  his 
angels.  But  all  this  is  secondary,  and  comes  much 
later.  Israel,  the  founder  of  our  religion,  did  not 
begin  with  this.  He  began  with  experience.  He 
knew  from  thankful  experience  the  not  ourselves 
which  makes  for  righteousness,  and  knew  how  little 
we  know  about  God  besides. 

IV. 

The  language  of  the  Bible,  then,  is  literary,  not 
scientific  language ;  language  thrown  out  at  an  object 
of  consciousness  not  fully  grasped,  which  inspired 
emotion.  Evidently,  if  the  object  be  one  not  fully 
to  be  grasped,  and  one  to  inspire  emotion,  the 


i.]  RELIGION  GIVEN.  37 

language  of  figure  and  feeling  will  satisfy  us  better 
about  it,  will  cover  more  of  what  we  seek  to  express, 
than  the  language  of  literal  fact  and  science.  The 
language  of  science  about  it  will  be  below  what  we 
feel  to  be  the  truth. 

The  question,  however,  has  arisen  and  confronts 
us :  what  was  the  scientific  basis  of  fact  for  this 
consciousness1?  When  we  have  once  satisfied  our- 
selves both  as  to  the  tentative,  poetic  way  in  which 
the  Bible-authors  used  language,  and  also  as  to  their 
having  no  pretensions  to  metaphysics  at  all,  let  us, 
therefore,  when  there  is  this  question  raised  as  to  the 
scientific  account  of  what  they  had  before  their  minds, 
be  content  with  a  very  unpretending  answer.  And  in 
this  way  such  a  phrase  as  that  which  we  have  formerly 
used  concerning  God,  and  have  been  much  blamed  for 
using, — the  phrase,  namely,  that,  "for  science,  God  is 
simply  the  stream  of  tendency  by  which  all  things  fulfil  the 
law  of  their  being" — may  be  allowed,  and  may  even 
prove  useful.  Certainly  it  is  inadequate;  certainly 
it  is  a  less  proper  phrase  than,  for  instance  :  "  Clouds 
and  darkness  are  round  about  him :  righteousness  and 
judgment  are  the  habitation  of  his  seat."1  But  then 
it  is,  in  however  humble  a  degree  and  with  however 

1  Ps.  xcvii.  2.  It  has  been  urged  that  if  this  personifying 
mode  of  expression  is  more  proper,  it  must  also  be  more  scienti- 
fically exact.  But  surely  it  must  on  reflection  appear  that  this 
is  by  no  means  so.  Wordsworth  calls  the  earth  "the  mighty 
mother  of  mankind,"  and  the  geographers  call  her  "an  oblate 
spheroid;"  Wordsworth's  expression  is  more  proper  and  ade- 
quate to  convey  what  men  feel  about  the  earth,  but  it  is  not 
therefore  the  more  scientifically  exact. 


38  LITERATUKE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

narrow  a  reach,  a  scientific  definition,  which  the  other 
is  not.  The  phrase,  "'A  Personal  First  Cause,  the 
moral  and  intelligent  Governor  of  the  universe,"  has 
also,  when  applied  to  God,  the  character,  no  doubt, 
of  a  scientific  definition ;  but  then  it  goes  far  beyond 
what  is  admittedly  certain  and  verifiable,  which  is 
what  we  mean  by  scientific.  It  attempts  far  too 
much.  If  we  want  here,  as  we  do  want,  to  have 
what  is  admittedly  certain  and  verifiable,  we  must 
content  ourselves  with  very  little.  No  one  will  say, 
that  it  is  admittedly  certain  and  verifiable,  that  there 
is  a  personal  first  cause,  the  moral  and  intelligent 
governor  of  the  universe,  whom  we  may  call  God  if 
we  will.  But  that  all  things  seem  to  us  to  have  what 
we  call  a  law  of  their  being,  and  to  tend  to  fulfil  it,  is 
certain  and  admitted;  though  whether  we  will  call 
this  God  or  not,  is  a  matter  of  choice.  Suppose, 
however,  we  call  it  God,  we  then  give  the  name  of 
God  to  a  certain  and  admitted  reality ;  this,  at  least, 
is  an  advantage. 

And  the  notion  of  our  definition  does,  in  fact, 
enter  into  the  term  God,  in  men's  common  use  of  it. 
To  please  God,  to  serve  God,  to  obey  God's  will, 
means  to  follow  a  law  of  things  which  is  found  in 
conscience,  and  which  is  an  indication,  irrespective  of 
our  arbitrary  wish  and  fancy,  of  what  we  ought  to 
do.  There  is,  then,  a  real  power  which  makes  for 
righteousness ;  and  it  is  the  greatest  of  realities  for  us.1 

1  Prayer,  about  which  so  much  has  often  been  said  unad- 
visedly and  ill,  deals  with  this  reality.  All  good  and  beneficial 
prayer  is  in  truth,  however  men  may  describe  it,  at  bottom 


i.|  KKL1GION  GIVEN.  39 

When  St.  Paul  says,  that  our  business  is  "  to  serve  the 
spirit  of  God,"  "to  serve  the  living  and  true  God;"1 
and  when  Epictetus  says:  "What  do  I  want1? — to 
acquaint  myself  with  the  true  order  of  things,  and 
comply  with  it,"2  they  both  meanj  so  far,  the  same,  in 
that  they  both  mean  we  should  obey  a  tendency,  which 
is  not  ourselves,  but  which  appears  in  our  consciousness, , 
by  which  things  fulfil  the  real  law  of  their  being. 

It  is  true,  the  not  ourselves,  by  which  things  fulfil 
the  real  law  of  their  being,  extends  a  great  deal 
beyond  that  sphere  where  alone  we  usually  think  of 
it.  That  is,  a  man  may  disserve  God,  disobey  indi- 
cations, not  of  our  own  making,  but  which  appear,  if 
we  attend,  in  our  consciousness, — he  may  disobey,  I 
say,  such  indications  of  the  real  law  of  our  being,  in 
other  spheres  besides  the  sphere  of  conduct.  He 
does  disobey  them,  when  he  sings  a  hymn  like :  My 
Jesus  to  know,  and  feel  his  blood  flow,  or,  indeed,  like 
nine-tenths  of  our  hymns, — or  when  he  frames  and 
maintains  a  blundering  and  miserable  constitution  of 
society, — as  well  as  when  he  commits  some  plain 
breach  of  the  moral  law.  That  is,  he  may  disobey 
them  in  art  and  science  as  well  as  in  conduct.  But 
he  attends,  and  the  generality  of  men  attend,  only  to 
the  indications  of  a  true  law  of  our  being  as  to  conduct; 

nothing  else  than  an  energy  of  aspiration  towards  the  eternal 
not  ourselves  that  makes  for  righteousness, — of  aspiration  to- 
wards it,  and  of  co-operation  with  it.  Nothing,  therefore,  can 
be  more  efficacious,  more  right,  and  more  real. 

1  Vhilippians  iii.  3  (iu  the  reading  of  the  Vatican  manu- 
script) ;  1  Thessalonians  i.  9. 

-  rl  £otf\o/<ccu ;  /cara/xa^etj/  TT\V  <$>va\.v  K 


40  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

and  hardly  at  all  to  indications,  though  they  as  really 
exist,  of  a  true  law  of  our  being  on  its  aesthetic  and 
intelligential  side.  The  reason  is,  that  the  moral  side, 
though  not  more  real,  is  so  much  larger ;  taking  in, 
as  we  have  said,  at  least  three-fourths  of  life.  Now, 
the  indications  on  this  moral  side  of  that  tendency, 
not  of  our  making,  by  which  things  fulfil  the  law  of 
their  being,  we  do  very  much  mean  to  denote  and  to 
sum  up  when  we  speak  of  the  will  of  God,  pleasing  God, 
serving  God.  Let  us  keep  firm  footing  on  this  basis  of 
plain  fact,  narrow  though  it  may  be. 

To  feel  that  one  is  fulfilling  in  any  way  the  law  of 
one's  being,  that  one  is  succeeding  and  hitting  the 
mark,  brings  us,  we  know,  happiness ;  to  feel  this  in 
regard  to  so  great  a  thing  as  conduct,  brings,  of 
course,  happiness  proportionate  to  the  thing's  great- 
ness. We  have  already  had  Quintilian's  witness,  how 
right  conduct  gives  joy.  Who  could  value  knowledge 
more  than  Goethe  ?  but  he  marks  it  as  being  without 
question  a  lesser  source  of  joy  than  conduct.  Conduct 
he  ranks  with  health  as  beyond  all  compare  primary. 
"  Nothing,  after  health  and  virtue,"  he  says,  "  can  give 
so  much  satisfaction  as  learning  and  knowing."  Nay, 
and  Bishop  Butler,  at  the  view  of  the  happiness  from 
conduct,  breaks  free  from  all  that  hesitancy  and  de- 
pression which  so  commonly  hangs  on  his  masterly 
thinking.  "  Self-love,  methinks,  should  be  alarmed  ! 
May  she  not  pass  over  greater  pleasures  than  those 
she  is  so  wholly  taken  up  with?"  And  Bishop 
Wilson,  always  hitting  the  right  nail  on  the  head  in 
matters  of  this  sort,  remarks  that,  "if  it  were  not 


I.]  RELIGION  GIVEN.  41 

for  the  practical  difficulties  attending  it,  virtue  would 
hard!;/  le  distinguishable  from  a  kind  of  sensuality"  The 
practical  difficulties  are  indeed  exceeding  great.  Plain 
as  is  the  course,  and  high  the  prize,  we  all  find  our- 
selves daily  led  to  say  with  the  Imitation :  "  Would 
that  for  one  single  day  we  had  lived  in  this  world  as 
we  ought!"  Yet  the  course  is  so  evidently  plain, 
and  the  prize  so  high,  that  the  same  Imitation  cries 
out  presently :  "If  a  man  would  but  take  notice, 
what  peace  he  brings  to  himself,  and  what  joy  to 
others,  merely  by  managing  himself  right ! "  And 
for  such  happiness,  since  certainly  we  ourselves  did 
not  -make  it,  we  instinctively  feel  grateful ;  according 
to  that  remark  of  one  of  the  wholesomest  and  truest 
of  moralists,  Barrow :  "  He  is  not  a  man,  who  doth 
not  delight  to  make  some  returns  thither  whence  he 
hath  found  great  kindness."  And  this  sense  of  grati- 
tude, again,  is  itself  an  addition  to  our  happiness  !  So 
strong,  altogether,  is  the  witness  and  sanction  happiness 
gives  to  going  right  in  conduct,  to  fulfilling,  so  far  as 
conduct  is  concerned,  the  law  indicated  to  us  of  our 
being.  Now,  there  can  be  no  sanction  to  compare, 
for  force,  with  the  strong  sanction  of  happiness,  if  it 
be  true  what  Bishop  Butler,  who  is  here  but  the 
mouthpiece  of  humanity  itself,  says  so  irresistibly  : 
"It  is  manifest  that  nothing  can  be  of  consequence 
to  mankind,  or  any  creature,  but  happiness."  But 
we  English  are  taunted  with  our  proneness  to  an 
unworthy  eudsemonism,  and  an  Anglican  bishop  may 
perhaps  be  a  suspected  witness.  Let  us  call,  then,  a 
glorious  father  of  the  Catholic  Church,  the  great 


42  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

Augustine  himself.  Says  St.  Augustine :  "  Act  we 
must  in  pursuance  of  what  gives  us  most  delight;  quod 
amplius  nos  delected,  secundum  id  operemur  necesse  est." 

And  now  let  us  see  how  exactly  Israel's  perceptions 
about  God  follow  and  confirm  this  simple  line,  which 
we  have  here  reached  quite  independently.  First : 
"  It  is  joy  to  the  just  to  do  judgment."1  Then  :  "  It 
becometh  well  the  just  to  be  thankful.''"2  Finally :  "A 
pleasant  thing  it  is  to  be  thankful."3  What  can  be 
simpler  than  this,  and  at  the  same  time  more  solid  1 
But  again :  "  The  statutes  of  the  Eternal  rejoice  the 
heart."4  And  then  :  "I  will  give  thanks  unto  thee, 
O  Eternal,  with  my  whole  heart ;  at  midnight  will  I 
rise  to  give  thanks  unto  thee  because  of  thy  righteous 
judgments!"5  And  lastly:  "It  is  a  good  thing  to 
give  thanks  unto  the  Eternal ;  it  is  a  good  thing  to 
sing  praises  unto  our  God/"6  Why,  these  are  the 
very  same  propositions  as  the  preceding,  only  with  a 
power  and  depth  of  emotion  added !  Emotion  has 
/  been  applied  to  morality. 

God  or  Eternal  is  here  really,  at  bottom,  nothing 
but  a  deeply  moved  way  of  saying  conduct  or  righteous 
ness.  "  Trust  in  God  "  is,  in  a  deeply  moved  way  of 
expression,  trust  in  the  law  of  conduct :  "  delight  in 
the  Eternal "  is,  in  a  deeply  moved  way  of  expression, 
the  happiness  we  all  feel  to  spring  from  conduct. 
Attending  to  conduct,  to  judgment,  makes  the  at- 
tender  feel  that  it  is  joy  to  do  it.  Attending  to  it 

1  Prov.  xxi.  15.  2  Ps.  xxxiii.  1. 

3  Ps.  cxlvii.  1.  4  Ps.  xix.  8. 

5  Ps.  cxxxviii.  1 ;  cxix.  62.         6  Ps,  xcii.  1 ;  cxlvii.  1. 


i.]  IIKLIGION  GIVEN.  43 

more  still,  makes  him  feel  that  it  is  the  commandment 
of  the  Eternal,  and  that  the  joy  got  from  it  is  joy 
from  fulfilling  the  commandment  of  the  Eternal.  The 
thankfulness  for  this  joy  is  thankfulness  to  the  Eter- 
nal ;  and  to  the  Eternal,  again,  is  due  that  further  joy 
which  conies  from  this  thankfulness.  "The  fear  of 
the  Eternal,  that  is  wisdom ;  and  to  depart  from  evil, 
that  is  understanding."1  "The  fear  of  the  Eternal" 
and  "  To  depart  from  evil "  here  mean,  and  are  put  to 
mean,  and  by  the  very  laws  of  Hebrew  composition 
which  make  the  second  phrase  in  a  parallelism  repeat 
the  first  in  other  words,  they  must  mean,  just  the 
same  thing.  Yet  what  man  of  soul,  after  he  had 
once  risen  to  feel  that  to  depart  from  evil  was  to 
walk  in  awful  observance  of  an  enduring  clue,  within 
us  and  without  us,  which  leads  to  happiness,  but 
would  prefer  to  say,  instead  of  "to  depart  from  evil," 
"  the  fear  of  the  Eternal  1 " 

Henceforth,  then,  Israel  transferred  to  this  Eternal 
all  his  obligations.  Instead  of  saying :  "  Whoso 
keepeth  the  commandment  keepeth  his  own  soul," 2 
he  rather  said,  "  My  soul,  wait  thou  only  upon  God, 
for  of  him  cometh  my  salvation!"3  Instead  of  say- 
ing :  "  Bind  them  (the  laws  of  righteousness)  continu- 
ally upon  thine  heart,  and  tie  them  about  thy  neck ! " 4 
he  rather  said,  "  Have  I  not  remembered  Thee  on  my 
bod,  and  thought  upon  Thee  when  I  was  waking  f'5 
The  obligation  of  a  grateful  and  devout  self-surrender 
to  the  Eternal  replaced  all  sense  of  obligation  to  one's 

1  Job  xxviii.  28.         2  Prov.  xix.  16.         3  Ps.  Ixii.  5,  1. 
4  Prov.  vi.  21.  5  Ps.  Ixiii.  7. 


44  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

own  better  self,  one's  own  permanent  welfare.  The 
moralist's  rule:  "Take  thought  for  your  permanent, 
not  your  momentary,  well-being,"  became  now : 
"  Honour  the  Eternal,  not  doing  thine  own  ways,  nor 
finding  thine  own  pleasure,  nor  speaking  thine  own 
words."1  That  is,  with  Israel  religion  replaced 
morality. 

It  is  true,  out  of  the  humble  yet  divine  ground  of 
\  attention  to  conduct,  of  care  for  what  in  conduct  is 
{  right  and  wrong,  grew  morality  and  religion  both ;  but, 
from  the  time  the  soul  felt  the  motive  of  religion,  it 
dropped  and  could  not  but  drop  the  other.  And  the 
motive  of  doing  right,  to  a  sincere  soul,  is  now  really 
no  longer  his  own  welfare,  but  to  please  God ;  and  it 
bewilders  his  consciousness  if  you  tell  him  that  he 
does  right  out  of  self-love.  So  that,  as  we  have  said 
that  the  first  man  who,  as  "a  being  of  a  large 
discourse,  looking  before  and  after,"  controlled  the 
blind  momentary  impulses  of  the  instinct  of  self- 
preservation,  and  controlled  the  blind  momentary 
impulses  of  the  sexual  instinct,  had  morality  revealed 
to  him  ;  so  in  like  manner  we  may  say,  that  the  first 
man  who  was  thrilled  with  gratitude,  devotion  and 
awe  at  the  sense  of  joy  and  peace,  not  of  his  own 
making,  which  followed  the  exercise  of  this  self-con- 
trol, had  religion  revealed  to  him.  And,  for  us  at 
least,  this  man  was  Israel. 

Now  here,  as  we  have  already  pointed  out  the 
falseness  of  the  common  antithesis  between  ethical  and 
religious,   let  us   anticipate   the    objection   that  the 
1  Isaiah  Iviii.  13. 


I.]  RELIGION  GIVEN.  45 

religion  here  spoken  of  is  but  natural  religion,  by 
pointing  out  the  falseness  of  the  common  antithesis, 
also,  between  natural  and  revealed.  For  that  in  us 
which  is  really  natural  is,  in  truth,  revealed.  We 
awake  to  the  consciousness  of  it,  we  are  aware  of  it 
coming  forth  in  our  mind ;  but  we  feel  that  we  did 
not  make  it,  that  it  is  discovered  to  us,  that  it  is  what 
it  is  whether  we  will  or  no.  If  we  are  little  con- 
cerned about  it,  we  say  it  is  natural ;  if  much,  we  say 
it  is  revealed.  But  the  difference  between  the  two  is 
not  one  of  kind,  only  of  degree.  The  real  antithesis, 
to  natural  and  revealed  alike,  is  invented,  artificial. 
Religion  springing  out  of  an  experience  of  the  power, 
the  grandeur,  the  necessity  of  righteousness,  is 
revealed  religion,  whether  we  find  it  in  Sophocles  or 
in  Isaiah.  "  The  will  of  mortal  men  did  not  beget  it, 
neither  shall  oblivion  ever  put  it  to  sleep."  A  sys- 
tem of  theological  notions  about  personality,  essence, 
existence,  consubstantiality,  is  artificial  religion,  and 
is  the  proper  opposite  to  revealed  ;  since  it  is  a  religion 
which  comes  forth  in  no  one's  consciousness,  but  is 
invented  by  theologians, — able  men  with  uncommon 
talents  for  abstruse  reasoning.  This  religion  is  in  no 
sense  revealed,  just  because  it  is  in  no  sense  natural. 
And  revealed  religion  is  properly  so  named,  just  in 
proportion  as  it  is  in  a  pre-eminent  degree  natural. 

The  religion  of  the  Bible,  therefore,  is  well  said  to 
be  revealed,  because  the  great  natural  truth,  that 
" righteousness  tendetli  to  life" 1  is  seized  and  exhibited 
there  with  such  incomparable  force  and  efficacy.  All, 

1  Prov.  xi.  19. 


46  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

or  very   nearly   all,  the   nations   of  mankind  have 
recognised  the  importance  of  conduct,  and  have  attri- 
buted to  it   a  natural   obligation.     They,  however, 
looked  at  conduct,  not  as  something  full  of  happiness 
and  joy,  but  as  something  one  could  not  manage  to 
do  without.     But:   "Sion  heard  of  it  and  rejoiced, 
and  the  daughters  of  Judah  were  glad,  because  of  thy 
judgments,  0  Eternal ! " 1     Happiness  is  our  being's 
'    end  and  aim,  and  no  one  has  ever  come  near  Israel 
;   in  feeling,  and  in  making  others  feel,  that  to  righteous- 
\^ness  belongs  happiness/    The  prodigies  and  the  mar- 
vellous of  Bible-religion  are  common  to  it  with  all 
religions ;  the  love  of  righteousness,  in  this  eminency, 
is  its  own. 

y. 

The  real  germ  of  religious  consciousness,  therefore, 
out  of  which  sprang  Israel's  name  for  God,  to  which 
the  records  of  his  history  adapted  themselves,  and 
which  came  to  be  clothed  upon,  in  time,  with  a 
mighty  growth  of  poetry  and  tradition,  was  a  con- 
sciousness of  the  not  ourselves  which  makes  for  righteous- 
ness. And  the  way  to  convince  oneself  of  this  is  by 
studying  the  Bible  with  a  fair  mind,  and  with  the  tact 
which  letters,  surely,  alone  can  give.  For  the  thing 
turns  upon  understanding  the  manner  in  which  men 
have  thought,  their  way  of  using  words,  and  what 
they  mean  by  them.  And  by  knowing  letters,  by 
becoming  conversant  with  the  best  that  has  been 
thought  and  said  in  the  world,  we  become  acquainted 
1  Psalm  xcvii.  8. 


I.]  RELIGION  GIVEN.  47 

not  only  with  the  history,  but  also  with  the  scope  and 
powers,  of  the  instruments  men  employ  in  thinking 
and  speaking.  And  this  is  just  what  is  sought  for. 

And  with  the  sort  of  experience  thus  gained  of  the 
history  of  the  human  spirit,  objections,  as  we  have 
said,  will  be  found  not  so  much  to  be  refuted  by 
reasoning  as  to  fall  away  of  themselves.  It  is  ob- 
jected :  "  Why,  if  the  Hebrews  of  the  Bible  had  thus 
eminently  the  sense  for  righteousness,  does  it  not 
equally  distinguish  the  Jews  now?"  But  does  not 
experience  show  us,  how  entirely  a  change  of  circum- 
stances may  change  a  people's  character;  and  have 
the  modern  Jews  lost  more  of  what  distinguished 
their  ancestors,  or  even  so  much,  as  the  modern 
Greeks  of  what  distinguished  theirs  *?  Where  is  now, 
among  the  Greeks,  the  dignity  of  life  of  Pericles,  the 
dignity  of  thought  and  of  art  of  Phidias  and  Plato  ? 
It  is  objected,  that  the  Jews'  God  was  not  the  endur- 
ing power  that  makes  for  righteousness,  but  only 
their  tribal  God,  who  gave  them  the  victory  in  the 
battle  and  plagued  them  that  hated  them.  But  how, 
then,  comes  their  literature  to  be  full  of  such  things 
as :  "  Shew  me  thy  ways,  0  Eternal,  and  teach  me 
thy  paths;  let  integrity  and  uprightness  preserve  me, 
for  I  put  my  trust  in  thee  !  if  I  incline  unto  wickedness 
with  my  heart,  the  Eternal  will  not  hear  mef'1 
From  the  sense  that  with  men  thus  guided  and  going 
right  in  goodness  it  could  not  but  be  well,  that  their 
leaf  could  not  wither  and  that  whatsoever  they  did 
must  prosper, 2  would  naturally  come  the  sense  that 

1  Ps.  xxv.  4,  21  ;  Ixvi.  18.  2  Ps.  i.  3. 


48  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

in  their  wars  with  an  enemy  the  enemy  should  be  put 
to  confusion  and  they  should  triumph.  But  how,  out 
of  the  mere  sense  that  their  enemy  should  he  put  to 
confusion  and  they  should  triumph,  could  the  desire 
for  goodness  come  1 

It  is  objected,  again,  that  their  "  law  of  the  Lord  " 
was  a  positive  traditionary  code  to  the  Hebrews, 
standing  as  a  mechanical  rule  which  held  them  in  awe ; 
that  their  "  fear  of  the  Lord  "  was  superstitious  dread 
of  an  assumed  magnified  and  non-natural  man.  But 
why,  then,  are  they  always  saying :  "  Teach  me  thy 
statutes,  Teach  me  thy  way,  Show  thou  me  the  way 
that  I  shall  walk  in,  Open  mine  eyes,  Make  me  to  under- 
stand wisdom  secretly/"1  if  all  the  law  they  were 
thinking  of  stood,  stark  and  written,  before  their  eyes 
already  1  And  what  could  they  mean  by :  "I  will 
love  thee,  0  Eternal,  my  strength  !"2  if  the  fear  they 
meant  was  not  the  awe-filled  observance  from  deep 
attachment,  but  a  servile  terror  1  It  is  objected,  that 
their  conception  of  righteousness  was  a  narrow  and 
rigid  one,  centring  mainly  in  what  they  called  judg- 
ment :  "  Hate  the  evil  and  love  the  good,  and  establish 
judgment  in  the  gate  !"3  so  that  "evil,"  for  them,  did 
not  take  in  all  faults  whatever  of  heart  and  conduct, 
but  meant  chiefly  oppression,  graspingness,  a  violent 
mendacious  tongue,  insolent  and  riotous  excess. 
True ;  their  conception  of  righteousness  was  much  of 
this  kind,  and  it  was  narrow.  But  whoever  sincerely 
attends  to  conduct,  along  however  limited  a  line,  is  on 

1  Ps.  cxix.  12  ;  Ixxxvi.  11  ;  cxliii.  8  ;  cxix.  18  ;  li.  6. 
2  Ps.  xviii.  1.  3  Amos  v.  15. 


i.J  IIELIU10N  GIVEN.  49 

his  way  to  bring  under  the  eye  of  conscience  all  con- 
duct whatever;  and  already,  in  the  Old  Testament, 
the  somewhat  monotonous  inculcation  of  the  social 
virtues  of  judgment  and  justice  is  continually  broken 
through  by  deeper  movements  of  personal  religion. 
Every  time  that  the  words  contrition  or  humility  drop 
from  the  lips  of  prophet  or  psalmist,  Christianity 
appears. 

It  is  objected,  finally,  that  even  their  own  narrow 
conception  of  righteousness  this  people  could  not 
follow,  but  were  perpetually  oppressive,  grasping, 
slanderous,  sensual.  Why,  the  very  interest  and  im- 
portance of  their  witness  to  righteousness  lies  in  their 
having  felt  so  deeply  the  necessity  of  what  they  were 
so  little  able  to  accomplish  !  They  had  the  strongest 
impulses  in  the  world  to  violence  and  excess,  the 
keenest  pleasure  in  gratifying  these  impulses.  And 
yet  they  had  such  a  sense  of  the  natural  necessary 
connection  between  conduct  and  happiness,  that  they 
kept  always  saying,  in  spite  of  themselves :  To  him 
that  ordereth  his  conversation  right  shall  be  shoivn  the  sal- 
latinn  of  God  ! 1 

Now  manifestly  this  sense  of  theirs  has  a  double 
force  for  the  rest  of  mankind, — an  evidential  force 
and  a  practical  force.  Its  evidential  force  is  in  keep- 
ing before  men's  view,  by  the  example  of  the  signal 
apparition,  in  one  branch  of  our  race,  of  the  sense  for 
conduct  and  righteousness,  the  reality  and  naturalness 
of  that  sense.  Clearly,  unless  a  sense  or  endowment 
<  >f  human  nature,  however  in  itself  real  and  beneficent, 

1  Psalm  1.  23. 
VOL.  V.  E 


50  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

has  some  signal  representative  among  mankind,  it 
tends  to  be  pressed  upon  by  other  senses  and  endow- 
ments, to  suffer  from  its  own  want  of  energy,  and  to 
be  more  and  more  pushed  out  of  sight.  Any  one,  for 
instance,  who  will  go  to  the  Potteries,  and  will  look 
at  the  tawdry,  glaring,  ill-proportioned  ware  which 
is  being  made  there  for  certain  American  and  colonial 
markets,  will  easily  convince  himself  how,  in  our 
people  and  kindred,  the  sense  for  the  arts  of  design, 
though  it  is  certainly  planted  in  human  nature, 
might  dwindle  and  sink  to  almost  nothing,  if  it  were 
not  for  the  witness  borne  to  this  sense,  and  the  pro- 
test offered  against  its  extinction,  by  the  brilliant 
aesthetic  endowment  and  artistic  work  of  ancient 
Greece.  And  one  cannot  look  out  over  the  world 
without  seeing  that  the  same  sort  of  thing  might  very 
well  befall  conduct,  too,  if  it  were  not  for  the  signal 
witness  borne  by  Israel. 

Then  there  is  the  practical  force  of  their  example ; 
and  this  is  even  more  important.  Every  one  is  aware 
how  those,  who  want  to  cultivate  any  sense  or 
endowment  in  themselves,  must  be  habitually  con- 
versant with  the  works  of  people  who  have  been 
eminent  for  that  sense,  must  study  them,  catch 
inspiration  from  them.  Only  in  this  way,  indeed, 
can  progress  be  made.  And  as  long  as  the  world 
lasts,  all  who  want  to  make  progress  in  righteousness 
will  come  to  Israel  for  inspiration,  as  to  the  people 
who  have  had  the  sense  for  righteousness  most  glowing 
and  strongest ;  and  in  hearing  and  reading  the  words 
Israel  has  uttered  for  us,  carers  for  conduct  will  find 


i.]  RELIGION  GIVKN.  51 

a  glow  and  a  force  they  could  find  nowhere  else.  As 
well  imagine  a  man  with  a  sense  for  sculpture  not 
cultivating  it  by  the  help  of  the  remains  of  Greek  art, 
or  a  man  with  a  sense  for  poetry  not  cultivating  it  by 
the  help  of  Homer  and  Shakspeare,  as  a  man  with  a 
sense  for  conduct  not  cultivating  it  by  the  help  of  the 
Bible  !  And  this  sense,  in  the  satisfying  of  which  we 
come  naturally  to  the  Bible,  is  a  sense  which  the 
generality  of  men  have  far  more  decidedly  than  they 
have  the  sense  for  art  or  for  science.  At  any  rate, 
whether  this  or  that  man  has  it  decidedly  or  not,  it 
is  the  sense  which  has  to  do  with  three-fourths  of 
human  life. 

This  does  truly  constitute  for  Israel  a  most  extra- 
ordinary distinction.  In  spite  of  all  which  in  them 
and  in  their  character  is  unattractive,  nay,  repellent, 
— in  spite  of  their  shortcomings  even  in  righteousness 
itself  and  their  insignificance  in  everything  else, — 
this  petty,  unsuccessful,  unamiable  people,  without 
politics,  without  science,  without  art,  without  charm, 
deserve  their  great  place  in  the  world's  regard,  and 
are  likely  to  have  it  more,  as  the  world  goes  on, 
rather  than  less.  It  is_gecured  to  them  by  the  facts 
of  human  nature,  and  by  the  unalterable  constitution 
« tf  things.  "God  hath  given  commandment  to  bless, 
and  he  hath  blessed,  and  we  cannot  reverse  it;  he 
hath  not  seen  iniquity  in  Jacob,  and  he  hath  not 
seen  perverseness  in  Israel ;  the  Eternal,  his  God,  is 
with  him  I"1 

Any  one  does  a  good  deed  who  removes  the  stumb- 
1  Numbers  xxiii.  20,  21. 


52  LITERATUEE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP.. 

ling-blocks  out  of  the  way  of  feeling  and  profiting  by 
the  witness  left  by  this  people.  And  so,  instead  of 
making  our  Hebrew  speakers  mean,  in  their  use  of 
the  word  God,  a  scientific  affirmation  which  never 
entered  into  their  heads,  and  about  which  many  will 
dispute,  let  us  content  ourselves  with  making  them 
mean,  as  matter  of  scientific  fact  and  experience,  what 
they  really  did  mean  as  such,  and  what  is  unchal- 
lengeable. Let  us  put  into  their  "Eternal"  and 
"  God  "  no  more  science  than  they  did  : — the  enduring 
power,  not  ourselves,  which  makes  for  righteousness.  They 
meant  more  by  these  names,  but  they  meant  this; 
and  this  they  grasped  fully.  And  the  sense  which 
this  will  give  us  for  their  words  is  at  least  solid ;  so 
that  we  may  find  it  of  use  as  a  guide  to  steady  us, 
and  to  give  us  a  constant  clue  in  following  what  they 
say. 

And  is  it  so  unworthy  ?  It  is  true,  unless  we  can 
fill  it  with  as  much  feeling  as  they  did,  the  mere 
possessing  it  will  not  carry  us  far.  But  matters  are 
not  at  all  mended  by  taking  their  language  of  approxi- 
mate figure  and  using  it  for  the  language  of  scientific 
definition;  or  by  crediting  them  with  our  own 
dubious  science,  deduced  from  metaphysical  ideas 
which  they  never  had.  A  better  way  than  this, 
surely,  is  to  take  their  fact  of  experience,  to  keep  it 
steadily  for  our  basis  in  using  their  language,  and  to 
see  whether  from  using  their  language  with  the 
ground  of  this  real  and  firm  sense  to  it,  as  they  them- 
selves did,  somewhat  of  their  feeling,  too,  may  not 
grow  upon  us.  At  least  we  shall  know  what  we  are 


I.]  RELIGION  GIVEN.  53 

saying ;  and  that  what  we  are  saying  is  true,  however 
inadequate. 

But  is  this  confessed  inadequatcness  of  our  speech, 
concerning  that  which  we  will  not  call  by  the  negative 
name  of  the  unknown  and  unknowable,  but  rather  by 
the  name  of  the  unexplored  and  the  inexpressible, 
and  of  which  the  Hebrews  themselves  said  :  It  is 
more  high  than  heaven,  what  canst  thou  do  ?  deeper  than 
hrfl,  what  canst  thou  knoiv?1 — is  this  reservedness  of 
affirmation  about  God  less  worthy  of  him,  than  the 
astounding  particularity  and  licence  of  affirmation  of 
our  dogmatists,  as  if  he  were  a  man  in  the  next 
street?  Nay,  and  nearly  all  the  difficulties  which 
torment  theology, — as  the  reconciling  God's  justice 
with  his  mercy,  and  so  on, — come  from  this  licence 
and  particularity ;  theologians  having  precisely,  as  it 
would  often  seem,  built  up  a  wall  first,  in  order  after- 
wards to  run  their  own  heads  against  it. 

This,  we  say,  is  what  comes  of  too  much  talent  for 
abstract  reasoning.  One  cannot  help  seeing  the 
theory  of  causation  and  such  things,  when  one  should 
only  see  a  far  simpler  matter  :  the  power,  the  grandeur, 
the  necessity  of  righteousness.  To  be  sure,  a  percep- 
tion of  these  is  at  the  bottom  of  popular  religion, 
underneath  all  the  extravagances  theologians  have 
taught  people  to  utter,  and  makes  the  whole  value  of 
it.  For  the  sake  of  this  true  practical  perception  one 
might  be  quite  content  to  leave  at  rest  a  matter  where 
practice,  after  all,  is  everything,  and  theory  nothing. 
Only,  when  religion  is  called  in  question  because  of 
1  Job  xi.  7. 


54  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP.  i. 

the  extravagances  of  theology  being  passed  off  as 
religion,  one  disengages  and  helps  religion  by  showing 
their  utter  delusiveness.  They  arose  out  of  the  talents 
of  able  men  for  reasoning,  and  their  want  (not  through 
lack  of  talent,  for  the  thing  needs  none;  it  needs 
only  time,  trouble,  good  fortune,  and  a  fair  mind; 
but  through  their  being  taken  up  with  their  reasoning 
power), — their  want  of  literary  experience.  By  a  sad 
mishap  the  sphere  where  they  show  their  talents  is 
one  for  literary  experience  rather  than  for  reasoning. 
This  mishap  has  at  the  very  outset, — in  the  dealings 
of  theologians  with  that  starting-point  in  our  religion, 
the  experience  of  Israel  as  set  forth  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, —  been  the  cause,  we  have  seen,  of  great 
confusion.  Naturally,  as  we  shall  hereafter  see,  the 
confusion  becomes  worse  confounded  as  they  proceed. 


CHAPTER  II. 
ABERGLAUBE  INVADING. 

"\VIIEN  people  ask  for  our  attention  because  of  what 
has  passed,  they  say,  "in  the  Council  of  the  Trinity," 
and  been  promulgated,  for  our  direction,  by  "a 
Personal  First  Cause,  the  moral  and  intelligent 
Governor  of  the  universe,"  it  is  certainly  open  to  any 
man  to  refuse  to  hear  them,  on  the  plea  that  the  very 
thing  they  start  with  they  have  no  means  of  proving. 
And  we  see  that  many  do  so  refuse  their  attention ; 
and  that  the  breach  there  is,  for  instance,  between 
popular  religion  and  what  is  called  science,  comes  from 
this  cause.  But  it  is  altogether  different  when  people 
ask  for  our  attention  on  the  strength  of  this  other 
first  principle :  "To  righteousness  belongs  happi^A 
ness;"  or  this:  "There  is  an  enduring  power,  not  I  V 
ourselves,  which  makes  for  righteousness."  The  more  J 
we  meditate  on  the  starting -ground  of  theirs,  the 
more  we  shall  find  that  there  is  solidity  in  it,  and  the 
more  we  shall  be  inclined  to  go  along  with  them  and 
to  see  what  will  come  of  it. 

And  herein  is  the  advantage  of  giving  this  plain, 
though  restricted,  sense  to  the  Bible-phrases  :  "  Blessed 


56  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

is  the  man  that  feareth  the  Eternal !"  and :  "Whoso 
trusteth  in  the  Eternal,  happy  is  he  I"1  By  tradition, 
emotion,  imagination,  the  Hebrews,  no  doubt,  came 
to  attach  more  than  this  plain  sense  to  these  phrases. 
But  this  plain,  solid,  and  experimental  sense  they 
attached  to  them  at  bottom,  they  attached  originally ; 
and  in  attaching  it  they  were  on  sure  ground  of  fact, 
where  we  can  all  go  with  them.  Their  words,  we 
shall  find,  taken  in  this  sense  have  quite  a  new  force 
for  us,  and  an  indisputable  one.  It  is  worth  while 
accustoming  ourselves  to  use  them  thus,  in  order  to 
bring  out  this  force  and  to  see  how  real  it  is,  limited 
though  it  be,  and  insignificant  as  it  may  appear. 
The  very  substitution  of  the  word  Eternal  for  the 
word  Lord  is  something  gained  in  this  direction. 
The  word  Eternal  has  less  of  particularity  and  palpa- 
bility for  the  imagination,  but  what  it  does  affirm  is 
real  and  verifiable. 

Let  us  fix  firmly  in  our  minds,  with  this  limited 
but  real  sense  to  the  words  we  employ,  the  connection 
of  ideas  which  was  ever  present  to  the  spirit  of  the 
Hebrew  people.  In  the  way  of  righteousness  is  life,  and 
in  the  -pathway  thereof  is  no  death;  as  righteousness 
tendeth  to  life,  so  he  that  pursueth  evil,  pursueth  it  to  his 
own  death  ;  as  the  whirlwind  passeth,  so  is  the  wicked  no 
more,  but  the  righteous  is  an  everlasting  foundation ; — 
here  is  the  ground  idea.2  Yet  there  are  continual 
momentary  suggestions  which  make  for  gratifying 
our  apparent  self,  for  unrighteousness;  nevertheless, 

1  Ps.  cxii.  1 ;  Prov.  xvi.  20. 

2  Prov.  xii.  28 ;  xi.  19  ;  x.  25. 


ii.]  ABERGLAUBE  INVADING.  57 

what  makes  for  our  real  self,  for  righteousness,  is 
lasting,  and  holds  good  in  the  end.  Therefore : 
Trust  in  the  Eternal  with  all  thine  heart,  and  lean  not 
unto  thine  own  understanding ;  there  is  no  wisdom,  nor 
understanding,  nor  counsel  against  the  Eternal ;  there  is 
a  way  that  seemeth  right  unto  a  man,  but  the  end  thereof 
are  the  ways  of  death  ;  there  are  many  devices  in  a  man's 
heart,  nevertheless,  the  counsel  of  the  Eternal,  that  shall 
stand. 1  To  follow  this  counsel  of  the  Eternal  is  the 
only  true  wisdom  and  understanding :  The  fear  of  the 
Eternal,  that  is  wisdom,  and  to  depart  from  evil,  that  is 
understanding. 2  It  is  also  happiness :  Blessed  is  every 
one  that  feareth  the  Eternal,  that  walketh  in  his  ways  ; 
happy  shall  he  be,  and  it  shall  be  well  with  him  ! 3  0 
taste  and  see  how  gracious  the  Eternal  is  !  blessed  is  the 
man  that  trusteth  in  him.*  Blessed  is  the  man  whose 
delight  is  in  the  law  of  the  Eternal ;  his  leaf  shall  not 
wither,  and  whatsoever  he  doeth,  it  shall  prosper :5  And 
the  more  a  man  walks  in  this  way  of  righteousness, 
the  more  he  feels  himself  borne  by  a  power  not  his 
own  :  Not  by  might  and  not  by  poiver,  but  by  my  spirit, 
saith  the  Eternal.6  0  Eternal,  I  know  that  the  way  of 
man  is  not  in  himself/  all  things  come  of  thee  ;  in  thy 
light  do  we  see  light ;  man's  goings  are  of  the  Eternal ; 
The  Eternal  ordereth  a  good  man's  going,  and  maJceth  his 
way  acceptable  to  himself.  **  But  man  feels,  too,  how  far 
he  always  is  from  fulfilling  or  even  from  fully  per- 

1  Troy.  iii.  5  ;  xxi.  30  ;  xiv.  12  ;  xix.  21. 

2  Job  xxviii.  28.  8  Ps.  cxxviii.  1.         4  Ps.  xxxiv.   8. 
5  Ps.  i.  1,  2,  3.  6  Zechariah  iv.  6. 

7  Jeremiah  x.  23  ;   1   Chronicles  xxix.  14  ;   Ps.   xxxvi.    9  ; 
Prov.  xx.  24  ;  Ps.  xxxvii.  23. 


58  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

ceiving  this  true  law  of  his  being,  these  indications  of 
the  Eternal,  the  way  of  righteousness.  He  says  and 
must  say :  /  am  a  stranger  upon  earth,  Oh,  hide  not  thy 
commandments  from  me  !  Enter  not  into  judgment  with 
thy  servant,  0  Eternal,  for  in  thy  sight  shall  no  man  living 
be  justified ! l  Nevertheless,  as  a  man  holds  on  to 
practice  as  well  as  he  can,  and  avoids,  at  any  rate, 
"  presumptuous  sins,"  courses  he  can  clearly  see  to  be 
wrong,  films  fall  away  from  his  eyes,  the  indications 
of  the  Eternal  come  out  more  and  more  fully,  we  are 
cleansed  from  faults  which  were  hitherto  secret  to 
us  :  Examine  me,  0  God,  and  prove  me,  try  out  my  reins 
and  my  heart ;  look  well  if  there  be  any  way  of  wickedness 
in  me,  and  lead  me  in  the  way  everlasting  / 2  0  cleanse 
thou  me  from  my  secret  faults!  thou  hast  proved  my 
heart,  thou  hast  visited  me  in  the  night,  thou  hast  tried  me 
and  shalt  find  nothing*  And  the  more  we  thus  get  to 
keep  innocency,  the  more  we  wonderfully  find  joy  and 
peace :  0  how  plentiful  is  thy  goodness  which  thou  hast 
laid  up  for  them  that  fear  thee  /  thou  shalt  hide  them  in 
the  secret  of  thy  presence  from  the  provoking  of  men.* 
Thou  wilt  show  me  the  path  of  life,  in  thy  presence  is  the 
fulness  of  joy,  at  thy  right  hand  there  are  pleasures  for 
evermore?  More  and  more  this  dwelling  on  the  joy 
and  peace  from  righteousness,  and  on  the  power  which 
makes  for  righteousness,  becomes  a  man's  consolation 
and  refuge  :  Thou  art  my  hiding-place,  thou  shalt  preserve 
me  from  trouble  ;  if  my  delight  had  not  been  in  thy  law,  I 

1  Ps.  cxix.  19  ;  cxliii.  2.         2  Ps.  xix.  13  ;  cxxxix.  23,  24. 
3  Ps.  xix.  12 ;  xvii.  3.  4  Ps.  xxxi.  19,  20. 

5  Ps.  xvi.  11. 


n.]  ABERGLAUBE  INVADING.  59 

should  have  perished  in  my  trouble.1  In  the  day  of  my 
trouble  I  sought  the  Eternal ;  a  refuge  from  the  storm,  a 
shadmv  from  the  heat  / 2  0  lead  me  to  the  rock  that  is 
higher  than  I/3  The  name  of  the  Eternal  is  as  a  strong 
toiver,  the  righteous  runneth  into  it  and  is  safe.*  And  the 
more  we  experience  this  shelter,  the  more  we  come 
to  feel  that  it  is  protecting  even  to  tenderness  :  Like  as 
a  father  pitieth  his  own  children,  even  so  is  the  Eternal 
merciful  unto  them  that  fear  him.5  Nay,  every  other 
support,  we  at  last  find,  every  other  attachment  may 
fail  us,  this  alone  fails  not :  Can  a  woman  forget  her  suck- 
ing child,  that  she  should  not  have  compassion  on  the  son  of 
her  womb  ?  Yea,  they  may  forget,  yet  will  I  not  forget 
thee.6 

All  this,  we  say,  rests  originally  upon  the  simple 
but  solid  experience :  "  Conduct  brings  happiness," 
or,  "  Righteousness  tendeth  to  life."  *  And,  by  making 
it  again  rest  there,  we  bring  out  in  a  new  but  most 
real  and  sure  way  its  truth  and  its  power. 

For  it  has  not  always  continued  to  rest  there, 
and  in  popular  religion  now,  as  we  manifestly  see,  it 
rests  there  no  longer.  It  is  important  to  follow  the 
way  in  which  this  change  gradually  happened,  and 
the  thing  ceased  to  rest  there.  Israel's  original  per- 
ception was  true  :  Righteousness  tendeth  to  life  /  8  It 
was  true,  that  the  workers  of  righteousness  have  a 
covenant  ivith  the  Eternal,  that  their  work  shall  be 
blessed  and  blessing,  and  shall  endure  for  ever. 

1  Ps.  xxxii.  7  ;  cxix.  92.         2  Ps.  Ixxvii.  2  ;  Isaiah  xxv.  4. 
3  Ps.  Ixi.  2.  4  Prov.  xviii.  10.         5  Ps.  ciii.  13. 

'  Isaiah  xlix.  15.         7  Prov.  xi.  19.  8    Prov.  xi.  19. 


60  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

But  what  apparent  contradictions  was  this  true 
original  perception  destined  to  meet  with  !  what  vast 
delays,  at  any  rate,  were  to  be  interposed  before  its 
truth  could  become  manifest !  And  how  instructively 
the  successive  documents  of  the  Bible,  which  popular 
religion  treats  as  if  it  were  all  of  one  piece,  one  time, 
and  one  mind,  bring  out  the  effect  on  Israel  of  these 
delays  and  contradictions  !  What  a  distance  between 
the  eighteenth  Psalm  and  the  eighty-ninth  !  between 
the  Book  of  Proverbs  and  the  Book  of  Ecclesiastes ! 
A  time  some  thousand  years  before  Christ,  the  golden 
age  of  Israel,  is  the  date  to  which  the  eighteenth 
Psalm  and  the  chief  part  of  the  Book  of  Proverbs 
belong.  This  is  the  time  in  which  the  sense  of  the 
necessary  connection  between  righteousness  and  happi- 
ness appears  with  its  full  simplicity  and  force.  The 
righteous  shall  be  recompensed  in  the  earth,  much  more 
the  wicked  and  the  sinner!  is  the  constant  burden  of 
the  Book  of  Proverbs ;  the  evil  bow  before  the  good)  and 
the  wicked  at  the  gates  of  the  righteous  ! 1  And  David, 
in  the  eighteenth  Psalm,  expresses  his  conviction  of 
the  intimate  dependence  of  happiness  upon  conduct, 
in  terms  which,  though  they  are  not  without  a  certain 
crudity,  are  yet  far  more  edifying  in  their  truth  and 
naturalness  than  those  morbid  sentimentalities  of  Pro- 
testantism about  man's  natural  vileness  and  Christ's 
imputed  righteousness,  to  which  they  are  diametrically 
opposed.  "I  have  kept  the  ways  of  the  Eternal,"  he 
says ;  "I  was  also  upright  before  him,  and  I  kept 
myself  from  mine  iniquity ;  therefore  hath  the  Eternal 
1  Prov.  xi.  31  ;  xiv.  19. 


ii.]  ABERGLAUBE  INVADING.  61 

rewarded  me  according  to  my  righteousness,  according 
to  the  cleanness  of  my  hands  hath  he  recompensed 
me ;  great  prosperity  showeth  he  unto  his  king,  and 
showeth  loving -kindness  unto  David  his  anointed, 
and  unto  his  seed  for  evermore."  That  may  be  called 
a  classic  passage  for  the  covenant  Israel  always  thinks 
and  speaks  of  as  made  by  God  with  his  servant  David, 
Israel's  second  founder.  And  this  covenant  was  but 
a  renewal  of  the  covenant  made  with  Israel's  first 
founder,  God's  servant  Abraham,  that  "righteousness 
shall  inJierit  a  blessing,"  and  that  "  in  thy  seed  all  nations 
of  the  earth  shall  be  blessed."  1 

But  what  a  change  in  the  eighty-ninth  Psalm,  a  few 
hundred  years  later !  "  Eternal,  where  are  thy  former 
loving-kindnesses  which  thou  swarest  unto  David1?  thou 
hast  abhorred  and  forsaken  thine  anointed,  thou  hast 
made  void  the  covenant ;  O  remember  how  short  my 
time  is  !"2  "  The  righteous  shall  be  recompensed  in  the 
earth/"  the  speaker  means;  "my  death  is  near,  and 
death  ends  all;  where,  Eternal,  is  thy  promise ?" 

Most  remarkable,  indeed,  is  the  inward  travail  to 
which,  in  the  six  hundred  years  that  followed  the  age 
of  David  and  Solomon,  the  many  and  rude  shocks 
befalling  Israel's  fundamental  idea,  Righteousness 
tendeth  to  life,  and  he  that  pursueth  evil  pursueth  it  to 
his  oiiii  death,  gave  occasion.  "Wherefore  do  the 
wicked  live,"  asks  Job,  "  become  old,  yea,  are  mighty 
in  power  1  their  houses  are  safe  from  fear,  neither  is 
the  rod  of  God  upon  them?"3  Job  himself  is  righteous, 

1  1  Peter  iii.  9  ;  Genesis  xxvi.  4. 
-  Psalm  Ixxxix.  49,  38,  39,  74.  3  Job  xxi  7,  9. 


62  LITER ATUKE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

and  yet :  "  On  mine  eyelids  is  the  shadow  of  death, 
not  for  any  injustice  in  mine  hands." l  All  through 
the  Book  of  Job  the  question,  how  this  can  be,  is 
over  and  over  again  asked  and  never  answered; 
inadequate  solutions  are  offered  and  repelled,  but  an 
adequate  solution  is  never  reached.  The  only  solution 
reached  is  that  of  silence  before  the  insoluble  :  "  I  will 
lay  mine  hand  upon  my  mouth."2  The  two  percep- 
tions, Righteousness  tendeth  to  life,  and,  The  ungodly 
prosper  in  the  world,  are  left  confronting  one  another 
like  Kantian  antinomies.3  "  The  earth  is  given  unto  the 
hand  of  the  wicked!"  and  yet:  "The  counsel  of  the 
wicked  is  far  from  me  ;  God  rewardeth  him,  and  he  shall 
know  it/"*  And  this  last,  the  original  perception, 
remains  indestructible.  The  Book  of  Ecclesiastes  has 
been  called  sceptical,  epicurean;  it  is  certainly  without 
the  glow  and  hope  which  animate  the  Bible  in  general. 
It  belongs,  probably,  to  the  fourth  century  before 
Christ,  to  the  latter  and  worse  days  of  the  Persian 
power;  with  difficulties  pressing  the  Jewish  com- 
munity on  all  sides,  with  a  Persian  governor 
lording  it  in  Jerusalem,  with  resources  light  and 
taxes  heavy,  with  the  cancer  of  poverty  eating  into 
the  mass  of  the  people,  with  the  rich  estranged  from  the 
poor  and  from  the  national  traditions,  with  the  priest- 
hood slack,  insincere,  and  worthless.  Composed  under 
such  circumstances,  the  book  has  been  said,  and  with 
justice,  to  breathe  resignation  at  the  grave  of  Israel.  Its 
author  sees  "  the  tears  of  the  oppressed,  and  they 

1  Job  xvi.  16,  17.  8  Job  xl.  4. 

3  Prov.  xi.  19  ;  Ps.  Ixxiii.  12.      4  Job  ix.  24  ;  xxi.  16,  19. 


ii.]  ABERGLAUBE  INVADING.  63 

had  no  comforter,  and  on  the  side  of  their  oppressors 
there  was  power ;  wherefore  I  praised  the  dead  which 
are  already  dead  more  than  the  living  which  are  yet 
alive."1  He  sees  "all  things  come  alike  to  all,  there 
is  one  event  to  the  righteous  and  to  the  wicked."'2 
Attempts  at  a  philosophic  indifference  appear,  at  a 
sceptical  suspension  of  judgment,  at  an  easy  ne  quid 
minis:  "Be  not  righteous  overmuch,  neither  make 
thyself  overwise !  why  shouldst  thou  destroy  thy- 
self?"3 Vain  attempts,  even  at  a  moment  which 
favoured  them !  shows  of  scepticism,  vanishing  as 
soon  as  uttered  before  the  intractable  conscientious- 
ness of  Israel!  For  the  Preacher  makes  answer 
against  himself :  "Though  a  sinner  do  evil  a  hundred 
times  and  his  days  be  prolonged,  yet  surely  I  know 
that  it  shall  be  well  with  them  that  fear  God ;  but  it 
shall  not  be  well  with  the  wicked,  because  he  feareth 
not  before  God."4 

Malachi,  probably  almost  contemporary  with  the 
Preacher,  felt  the  pressure  of  the  same  circumstances, 
had  the  same  occasions  of  despondency.  All  around 
him  people  were  saying  :  "  Every  one  that  doeth  evil 
is  good  in  the  sight  of  the  Eternal,  and  he  delighteth 
in  them ;  where  is  the  God  of  judgment  ?  it  is  vain 
to  serve  God,  and  what  profit  is  it  that  we  have  kept 
his  ordinance  3 " 6  What  a  change  from  the  clear 
certitude  of  the  golden  age :  "As  the  whirlwind 
passeth,  so  is  the  wicked  no  more ;  but  the  righteous 

1  Eccles.  iv.  1,  2.  2  Eccles.  ix.  2. 

3  Eccles.  vii.  16.  4  Eccles.  viii.  12,  13. 

5  Malachi  ii.  17  ;  iii.  14. 


64  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

is  an  everlasting  foundation  ! " l  But  yet,  with  all  the 
certitude  of  this  happier  past,  Malachi  answers  on 
behalf  of  the  Eternal :  "  Unto  you  that  fear  my  name 
shall  the  sun  of  righteousness  arise  with  healing  in 
his  wings  ! "  2 

Many  there  were,  no  doubt,  who  had  lost  all  living 
sense  that  the  promises  were  made  to  righteousness  ; 
who  took  them  mechanically,  as  made  to  them  and 
assured  to  them  because  they  were  the  seed  of 
Abraham,  because  they  were,  in  St.  Paul's  words : 
"  Israelites,  to  whom  pertain  the  adoption  and  the 
glory  and  the  covenants  and  the  giving  of  the  law  and 
the  service  of  God,  and  whose  are  the  fathers."3 
These  people  were  perplexed  and  indignant  when  the 
privileged  seed  became  unprosperous;  and  they  looked 
for  some  great  change  to  be  wrought  in  the  fallen  for- 
tunes of  Israel,  wrought  miraculously  and  materially. 
And  they  were,  no  doubt,  the  great  majority,  and  of 
the  mass  of  Jewish  expectation  concerning  the  future 
they  stamped  the  character.  With  them,  however, 
our  interest  does  not  for  the  present  lie ;  it  lies  with 
the  prophets  and  those  whom  the  prophets  represent. 
It  lies  with  the  continued  depositaries  of  the  original 
revelation  to  Israel,  Righteousness  tendeth  to  life ;  who 
saw  clearly  enough  that  the  promises  were  to  righteous- 
ness, and  that  what  tendeth  to  life  was  not  the  seed  of 
Abraham  taken  in  itself,  but  righteousness.  With  this 
minority,  and  with  its  noble  representatives  the  pro- 
phets, our  present  interest  lies ;  the  further  develop- 
ment of  their  conviction  about  righteousness  is  what 
1  Prov.  x.  25.  2  Malachi  iv.  2.  3  Rom.  ix.  4,  5. 


ii.]  ABERGLAUBE  INVADING.  65 

it  here  imports  us  to  trace.  An  indestructible  faith 
that  the  righteous  is  an  everlasting  foundation  they  had ; 
yet  they  too,  as  we  have  seen,  could  not  but  notice, 
as  time  went  on,  many  things  which  seemed  apparently 
to  contradict  this  their  belief.  In  private  life,  there 
was  the  frequent  prosperity  of  the  sinner.  In  the 
life  of  nations,  there  was  the  rise  and  power  of  the 
great  unrighteous  kingdoms  of  the  heathen,  the 
unsuccessfulness  of  Israel;  although  Israel  was  un- 
doubtedly, as  compared  with  the  heathen,  the  deposi- 
tary and  upholder  of  the  idea  of  righteousness. 
Therefore  prophets  and  righteous  men  also,  like  the 
unspiritual  crowd,  could  not  but  look  ardently  and 
expectantly  to  the  future,  to  some  great  change  and 
redress  in  store. 

At  the  same  time,  although  their  experience  that 
the  righteous  were  often  afflicted,  and  the  wicked  often 
prosperous,  could  not  but  perplex  pious  Hebrews; 
although  their  conscience  felt,  and  could  not  but  feel, 
that,  compared  with  the  other  nations  with  whom  they 
came  in  contact,  they  themselves  and  their  fathers  had 
a  concern  for  righteousness,  and  an  unremitting  sense 
of  its  necessity,  which  put  them  in  covenant  with  the 
Eternal  who  makes  for  righteousness,  and  which 
rendered  the  triumph  of  other  nations  over  them  a 
triumph  of  people  who  cared  little  for  righteousness 
over  people  who  cared  for  it  much,  and  a  cause  of 
perplexity,  therefore,  to  men's  trust  in  the  Eternal,— 
though  their  conscience  told  them  this,  yet  of  their 
own  shortcomings  and  perversities  it  told  them  louder 
still,  and  that  their  sins  had  in  truth  been  enough  to 

VOL.  v.  F 


66  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

break  their  covenant  with  the  Eternal  a  thousand 
times  over,  and  to  bring  justly  upon  them  all  the 
miseries  they  suffered.  To  enable  them  to  meet  the 
terrible  day,  when  the  Eternal  would  avenge  him  of 
his  enemies  and  make  up  his  jewels,  they  themselves 
needed,  they  knew,  the  voice  of  a  second  Elijah,  a 
change  of  the  inner  man,  repentance}- 


II. 

And  then,  with  Malachi's  testimony  on  its  lips  to 
the  truth  of  Israel's  ruling  idea,  Righteousness  tendeth 
to  life  !  died  prophecy.  Through  some  four  hundred 
years  the  mind  of  Israel  revolved  those  wonderful 
utterances,  which,  even  now,  on  the  ear  of  even  those 
who  only  half  understand  them  and  who  do  not  at  all 
believe  them,  strike  with  such  strange,  incomparable 
power, — the  promises  of  prophecy.  Through  four 
hundred  years,  amid  distress  and  humiliation,  the 
Hebrew  race  pondered  those  magnificent  assurances 
that  "  the,  Eternal's  arm  is  not  shortened,"  that  "righteous- 
ness shall  be  for  ever,"  2  and  that  the  future  would  prove 
this,  even  if  the  present  did  not.  "The  Eternal 
f ainteth  not,  neither  is  weary ;  he  giveth  power  to 
the  faint.3  They  that  wait  on  the  Eternal  shall 
renew  their  strength;  the  redeemed  of  the  Eternal 
shall  return  and  come  with  singing  to  Zion,  and  ever- 
lasting joy  shall  be  upon  their  head ;  they  shall  repair 
the  old  wastes,  the  desolations  of  many  generations ; 

1  Malachi  iii.  17  ;  iv.  5.  2  Isaiah  lix.  1 ;  li.  8. 

3  Isaiah  xl.  28,  29. 


ii.]  ABERGLAUBE  INVADING.  G7 

and  I,  the  Eternal,  will  make  an  everlasting  covenant 
with  them.1  The  Eternal  shall  be  thine  everlasting 
light,  and  the  days  of  thy  mourning  shall  be  ended ; 
the  Gentiles  shall  come  to  thy  light,  and  kings  to  the 
brightness  of  thy  rising,  and  my  salvation  shall  be  for 
ever,  and  my  righteousness  shall  not  be  abolished." 2 

The  prophets  themselves,  speaking  when  the  ruin 
of  their  country  was  impending,  or  soon  after  it  had 
happened,  had  for  the  most  part  had  in  prospect  the 
actual  restoration  of  Jerusalem,  the  submission  of  the 
nations  around,  and  the  empire  of  David  and  Solomon 
renewed.  But  as  time  went  on,  and  Israel's  return 
from  captivity  and  resettlement  of  Jerusalem  by  no 
means  answered  his  glowing  anticipations  from  them, 
these  anticipations  had  more  and  more  a  construction 
put  upon  them  which  set  at  defiance  the  unworthiness 
and  infelicities  of  the  actual  present,  which  filled  up 
what  prophecy  left  in  outline,  and  which  embraced 
the  world.  The  Hebrew  Amos,  of  the  eighth  century 
before  Christ,  promises  to  his  hearers  a  recovery  from 
their  ruin  in  which  they  shall  possess  the  remnant  of 
Edom ;  the  Greek  or  Aramaic  Amos  of  the  Christian 
era,  whose  words  St.  James  produces  in  the  conference 
at  Jerusalem,  promises  a  recovery  for  Israel  in  which 
the  residue  of  men  shall  seek  the  Eternal.5  This  is  but 
a  specimen  of  what  went  forward  on  a  large  scale. 
The  redeemer,  whom  the  unknown  prophet  of  the 
captivity  foretold  to  Zion,4  has,  a  few  hundred  years 

1  Isaiah  xl.  31  ;  xxxv.  10  ;  Ixi.  4,  8. 

2  Isaiah  Ix.  20,  3  j  li.  6. 
3  Amos  ix.  12  ;  Acts  xv.  17.  4  Isaiah  lix.  20. 


68  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

later,  for  the  writer  whom  we  call  Daniel  and  for  his 
contemporaries,  become  the  miraculous  agent  of  Israel's 
new  restoration,  the  heaven-sent  executor  of  the 
Eternal's  judgment,  and  the  bringer-in  of  the  kingdom 
of  righteousness — the  Messiah,  in  short,  of  our  popu- 
lar religion.  "  One  like  the  Son  of  Man  came  with 
the  clouds  of  heaven,  and  came  to  the  Ancient  of 
Days,  and  there  was  given  him  dominion  and  glory, 
and  a  kingdom,  that  all  people,  nations,  and  languages 
should  serve  him;  and  the  kingdom  and  dominion 
shall  be  given  to  the  people  of  the  saints  of  the  Most 
High."1  An  impartial  criticism  will  hardly  find  in 
the  Old  Testament  writers  before  the  times  of  the 
Maccabees  (and  certainly  not  in  the  passages  usually 
quoted  to  prove  it)  the  set  doctrine  of  the  immortality 
of  the  soul  or  of  the  resurrection  of  the  dead.  But 
by  the  time  of  the  Maccabees,  when  this  passage  of 
the  Book  of  Daniel  was  written,  in  the  second  century 
before  Christ,  the  Jews  have  undoubtedly  become 
familiar,  not  indeed  with  the  idea  of  the  immortality 
of  the  soul  as  philosophers  like  Plato  conceived  it, 
but  with  the  notion  of  a  resurrection  of  the  dead  to 
take  their  trial  for  acceptance  or  rejection  in  the  Most 
High's  judgment  and  kingdom. 

To  this,  then,  has  swelled  Israel's  original  and 
fruitful  thesis  : — Righteousness  tendeth  to  life !  as  the 
whirlwind  passeth,  so  is  the  wicked  no  more,  but  the  right- 
eous is  an  everlasting  foundation  ! 2  The  phantasma- 
gories  of  more  prodigal  and  wild  imaginations  have 
mingled  with  the  product  of  Israel's  own  austere 
1  Daniel  vii.  13,  14,  27.  2  Prov.  xi.  19  ;  x.  25. 


ii.]  ABEKGLAUBE  INVADING.  69 

spirit;  Babylon,  Persia,  Egypt,  even  Greece,  have 
left  their  trace  there ;  but  the  unchangeable  substruc- 
ture remains,  and  on  that  substructure  is  everything 
built  which  comes  after. 

In  one  sense,  the  lofty  Messianic  ideas  of  "the 
great  and  notable  day  of  the  Eternal,"  "  the  consola- 
tion of  Israel,"  "  the  restitution  of  all  things," x  are 
even  more  important  than  the  solid  but  humbler  idea, 
tighteousness  tendeth  to  life,  out  of  which  they  arose. 
In  another  sense  they  are  much  less  important.  They 
are  more  important,  because  they  are  the  development 
of  this  idea  and  prove  its  strength.  It  might  have 
been  crushed  and  baffled  by  the  falsification  events 
seemed  to  delight  in  giving  it ;  that,  instead  of  being 
crushed  and  baffled,  it  took  this  magnificent  flight, 
shows  its  innate  power.  And  they  also  in  a  wonder- 
ful manner  attract  emotion  to  the  ideas  of  conduct 
and  morality,  attract  it  to  them  and  combine  it  with 
them.  On  the  other  hand,  the  idea  that  righteousness 
tendeth  to  life  has  a  firm,  experimental  ground,  which 
the  Messianic  ideas  have  not.  And  the  day  comes 
when  the  possession  of  such  a  ground  is  invaluable. 

That  the  spirit  of  man  should  entertain  hopes  and 
anticipations,  beyond  what  it  actually  knows  and  can 
verify,  is  quite  natural.  Human  life  could  not  have 
the  scope,  and  depth,  and  progress  it  has,  were  this 
otherwise.  It  is  natural,  too,  to  make  these  hopes 
and  anticipations  give  in  their  turn  support  to  the 
simple  and  humble  experience  which  was  their  original 
ground.  Israel,  therefore,  who  originally  followed 
1  A-jts  ii.  20  ;  Luke  ii.  25  ;  Acts  iii.  21. 


70  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP.  n. 

righteousness  because  he  felt  that  it  tended  to  life, 
might  and  did  naturally  come  at  last  to  follow  it 
because  it  would  enable  him  to  stand  before  the  Son 
of  Man  at  his  coming,  and  to  share  in  the  triumph  of 
the  saints  of  the  Most  High. 

But  this  latter  belief  has  not  the  same  character  as 
the  belief  which  it  is  thus  set  to  confirm.  It  is  a 
kind  of  fairy-tale,  which  a  man  tells  himself,  which 
no  one,  we  grant,  can  prove  impossible  to  turn  out 
true,  but  which  no  one,  also,  can  prove  certain  to 
turn  out  true.  It  is  exactly  what  is  expressed  by  the 
German  word  "  Aberglaube,"  extra-belief,  belief  beyond 
what  is  certain  and  verifiable.  Our  word  "  supersti- 
tion "  had  by  its  derivation  this  same  meaning,  but  it 
has  come  to  be  used  in  a  merely  bad  sense,  and  to 
mean  a  childish  and  craven  religiosity.  With  the 
German  word  it  is  not  so ;  therefore  Goethe  can  say 
with  propriety  and  truth:  " Aberglaube  is  the  poetry 
of  life, — der  Aberglaube  ist  die  Poem  des  Lebens"  It 
is  so.  Extra -belief,  that  which  we  hope,  augur, 
imagine,  is  the  poetry  of  life,  and  has  the  rights  of 
poetry.  But  it  is  not  science ;  and  yet  it  tends 
always  to  imagine  itself  science,  to  substitute  itself 
for  science,  to  make  itself  the  ground  of  the  very 
science  out  of  which  it  has  grown.  The  Messianic 
ideas,  which  were  the  poetry  of  life  to  Israel  in  the 
age  when  Jesus  Christ  came,  did  this ;  and  it  is  the 
more  important  to  mark  that  they  did  it,  because 
similar  ideas  have  so  signally  done  the  same  thing 
with  popular  Christianity. 


CHAPTER  III. 

RELIGION   NEW-GIVEN. 

JESUS  CHRIST  was  undoubtedly  the  very  last  sort  of 
Messiah  whom  the  Jews  expected.  Christian  theo- 
logians say  confidently  that  the  characters  of  humility, 
obscureness,  and  depression,  were  commonly  attributed 
to  the  Jewish  Messiah;  and  even  Bishop  Butler,  in 
general  the  most  severely  exact  of  writers,  gives 
countenance  to  this  error.  What  is  true  is,  that  we 
find  these  characters  attributed  to  some  one  by  the 
prophets;  that  we  attribute  them  to  Jesus  Christ; 
that  Jesus  is  for  us  the  Messiah,  and  that  Jesus  they 
suit.  But  for  the  prophets  themselves,  and  for  the 
Jews  who  heard  and  read  them,  these  characters  of 
lowliness  and  depression  belonged  to  God's  chastened 
servant,  the  idealised  Israel.  When  Israel  had  been 
purged  and  renewed  by  these,  the  Messiah  was  to 
appear ;  but  with  glory  and  power  for  his  attributes, 
not  humility  and  weakness.  It  is  impossible  to  resist 
acknowledging  this,  if  we  read  the  Bible  to  find  from 
it  what  those  who  wrote  it  really  intended  to  think 
and  say,  and  not  to  put  into  it  what  we  wish  them  to 
have  thought  and  said.  To  find  in  Jesus  the  genuine 


72  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

Jewish  Messiah,  or  to  find  in  him  the  Son  of  Man  of 
Daniel,  one  coming  with  the  clouds  of  heaven  and 
having  universal  dominion  given  him,  must  certainly, 
to  a  Jew,  have  been  extremely  difficult. 

Nevertheless,  there  is  undoubtedly  in  the  Old  Tes- 
tament the  germ  of  Christianity.  In  developing  this 
germ  lay  the  future  of  righteousness  itself,  of  Israel's 
primary  and  immortal  concern ;  and  the  incomparable 
greatness  of  the  religion  founded  by  Jesus  Christ 
comes  from  his  having  developed  it.  Jesus  Christ  is 
not  the  Messiah  to  whom  the  hopes  of  his  nation 
pointed;  and  yet  Christendom  with  perfect  justice 
has  made  him  the  Messiah,  because  he  alone  took, 
when  his  nation  was  on  another  and  a  false  tack,  a 
way  obscurely  indicated  in  the  Old  Testament,  and 
the  one  only  possible  and  successful  way,  for  the 
accomplishment  of  the  Messiah's  function : — to  Wing 
in  everlasting  righteousness.1  Let  us  see  how  this  was 
so. 

Religion  in  the  Old  Testament  is  a  matter  of 
national  and  social  conduct  mainly.  First,  it  consists 
in  devotion  to  Israel's  God,  the  Eternal  who  loveth 
righteousness,  and  of  separation  from  other  nations 
whose  concern  for  righteousness  was  less  fervent, — of 
abhorrence  of  their  idolatries  which  were  sure  to 
bewilder  and  diminish  this  fervent  concern.  Secondly, 
it  consists  in  doing  justice,  hating  all  wrong,  robbery, 
and  oppression,  abstaining  from  insolence,  lying,  and 
slandering.  The  Jews'  polity,  their  theocracy,  was  of 
such  immense  importance,  because  religion,  when 
1  Daniel  ix.  24. 


in.]  RELIGION  NEW-GIVEN.  73 

conceived  as  having  its  existence  in  these  national 
and  social  duties  mainly,  requires  a  polity  to  put  itself 
forth  in ;  and  the  Jews'  polity  was  adapted  to  religion 
so  conceived.  But  this  religion,  as  it  developed  itself, 
was  by  no  means  fully  worthy  of  the  intuition  out  of 
which  it  had  grown.  We  have  seen  how,  in  its 
intuition  of  God, — of  that  "not  ourselves"  of  which 
all  mankind  form  some  conception  or  other, — as  the 
Eternal  that  makes  for  righteousness,  the  Hebrew  race 
found  the  revelation  needed  to  breathe  emotion  into 
the  laws  of  morality,  and  to  make  morality  religion. 
This  revelation  is  the  capital  fact  of  the  Old  Testament, 
and  the  source  of  its  grandeur  and  power.  But  it  is 
evident  that  this  revelation  lost,  as  time  went  on,  its 
nearness  and  clearness ;  and  that  for  the  mass  of  the 
Hebrews  their  God  came  to  be  a  mere  magnified  and 
non-natural  man,  like  the  God  of  our  popular  religion 
now,  who  has  commanded  certain  courses  of  conduct 
and  attached  certain  sanctions  to  them. 

And  though  prophets  and  righteous  men,  among 
the  Hebrews,  might  preserve  always  the  immediate 
and  truer  apprehension  of  their  God  as  the  Eternal 
who  makes  for  righteousness,  they  in  vain  tried  to  com- 
municate this  apprehension  to  the  mass  of  their 
countrymen.  They  had,  indeed,  special  difficulty  to 
contend  with  in  communicating  it ;  and  the  difficulty 
was  this.  Those  courses  of  conduct,  which  Israel's 
intuition  of  the  Eternal  had  originally  touched  with 
emotion  and  made  religion,  lay  chiefly,  we  have  seen, 
in  the  line  of  national  and  social  duties.  By  reason 
of  the  stage  of  their  own  growth  and  the  world's,  at 


74  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

which  this  revelation  found  the  Hebrews,  the  thing 
could  not  well  be  otherwise.  And  national  and  social 
duties  are  peculiarly  capable  of  a  mechanical,  exterior 
performance,  in  which  the  heart  has  no  share.  One 
may  observe  rites  and  ceremonies,  hate  idolatry, 
abstain  from  murder  and  theft  and  false  witness,  and 
yet  have  one's  inward  thoughts  bad,  callous,  and 
disordered.  Then  even  the  admitted  duties  them- 
selves come  to  be  ill-discharged  or  set  at  nought, 
because  the  emotion  which  was  the  only  certain 
security  for  their  good  discharge  is  wanting.  The 
very  power  of  religion,  as  we  have  seen,  lies  in  its 
bringing  emotion  to  bear  on  our  rules  of  conduct,  and 
thus  making  us  care  for  them  so  much,  consider  them 
so  deeply  and  reverentially,  that  we  surmount  the 
great  practical  difficulty  of  acting  in  obedience  to 
jthem,  and  follow  them  heartily  and  easily.  There- 
fore the  Israelites,  when  they  lost  their  primary 
intuition  and  the  deep  feeling  which  went  with  it, 
were  perpetually  idolatrous,  perpetually  slack  or 
niggardly  in  the  service  of  Jehovah,  perpetually 
violators  of  judgment  and  justice. 

The  prophets  earnestly  reminded  their  nation  of 
the  superiority  of  judgment  and  justice  to  any 
exterior  ceremony  like  sacrifice.  But  judgment  and 
justice  themselves,  as  Israel  in  general  conceived  them, 
have  something  exterior  in  them;  now,  what  was 
wanted  was  more  inwardness,  more  feeling.  This  was 
given  by  adding  mercy  and  humbleness  to  judgment 
and  justice.  Mercy  and  humbleness  are  something 
inward,  they  are  affections  of  the  heart.  And  even 


in.]  RELIGION  NEW-GIVKX.  75 

in  the  Proverbs  these  appear:  "The  merciful  man 
doeth  good  to  his  own  soul;"  "He  that  hath  mercy 
on  the  poor,  happy  is  he ;"  "Honour  shall  uphold  the 
humble  in  spirit;"  "When  pride  cometh,  shame 
cometh,  but  with  the  lowly  is  wisdom."1  And  the 
prophet  Micah  asked  his  nation:  "What  doth  the 
Eternal  require  of  thee,  but  to  do  justly,  and  to  love 
mercy,  and  to  walk  humbly  with  thy  God1?"  adding 
mercy  and  humility  to  the  old  judgment  and  justice. 2 
But  a  further  development  is  given  to  humbleness, 
when  the  second  Isaiah  adds  contrition  to  it :  "  I " 
(the  Eternal)  "dwell  with  him  that  is  of  a  contrite 
and  humble  spirit  ;"3  or  when  the  Psalmist  says,  "  The 
sacrifices  of  God  are  a  broken  spirit ;  a  broken  and  a 
contrite  heart,  O  God,  thou  wilt  not  despise  !"4 

This  is  personal  religion  ;  religion  consisting  in  the 
inward  feeling  and  disposition  of  the  individual 
himself,  rather  than  in  the  performance  of  outward 
acts  towards  religion  or  society.  It  is  the  essence  of 
Christianity,  it  is  what  the  Jews  needed,  it  is  the 
line  in  which  their  religion  was  ripe  for  development. 
And  it  appears  in  the  Old  Testament.  Still,  in  the 
Old  Testament  it  by  no  means  comes  out  fully.  The 
leaning,  there,  is  to  make  religion  social  rather  than 
personal,  an  affair  of  outward  duties  rather  than  of 
inward  dispositions.  Soon  after  the  very  words  we 
have  just  quoted  from  him,  the  second  Isaiah  adds : 
"  If  thou  take  away  from  the  midst  of  thee  the  yoke, 
the  putting  forth  of  the  finger  and  speaking  vanity, 

1  Prov.  xi.  17  ;  xiv.  21 ;  xxix.  23  ;  xi.  2.       2  Micali  vi  8. 
3  Isaiah  Ivii.  15.  *  Psalm  li.  17. 


76  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP 

and  if  thou  draw  out  thy  soul  to  the  hungry,  and 
satisfy  the  afflicted  soul,  then  shall  thy  light  rise  in 
obscurity  and  thy  darkness  be  as  the  noon-day,  and 
the  Eternal  shall  guide  thee  continually  and  make  fat 
thy  bones."1  This  stands,  or  at  least  appears  to 
stand,  as  a  full  description  of  righteousness ;  and,  as 
such,  it  is  unsatisfying. 

II. 

What  was  wanted,  then,  was  a  fuller  description 
of  righteousness.  Now,  it  is  clear  that  righteousness, 
the  central  object  of  Israel's  concern,  was  the  central 
object  of  Jesus  Christ's  concern  also.  Of  the  develop- 
ment and  of  the  cardinal  points  of  his  teaching  we 
shall  have  to  speak  more  at  length  by  and  by ;  all  we 
have  to  do  here  is  to  pass  them  in  a  rapid  preliminary 
review.  Israel  had  said  :  "To  him  that  ordereth  his 
conversation  right  shall  be  shown  the  salvation  of 
God."2  And  Jesus  said  :  "Except  your  righteousness 
exceed  the  righteousness  of  the  Scribes  and  Phari- 
sees,"— that  is,  of  the  very  people  who  then  passed 
for  caring  most  about  righteousness  and  practising  it 
most  rigidly, — "ye  shall  in  no  wise  enter  into  the 
kingdom  of  heaven."3  But  righteousness  had  by 
Jesus  Christ's  time  lost,  in  great  measure,  the  mighty 
impulse  which  emotion  gives ;  and  in  losing  this,  had 
lost  also  the  mighty  sanction  which  happiness  gives. 
The  whole  head  was  sick  and  the  whole  heart  faint  ;"4 
the  glad  and  immediate  sense  of  being  in  the  right 
way,  in  the  way  of  peace,  was  gone;  the  sense  of 
1  Is.  Iviii.  9-11.  2  Ps.  1.  23.  3  Matt.  v.  20.  4  Is.  i.  5. 


in.]  KELIGION  NEW-GIVEN.  77 

being  wrong  and  astray,  of  sin,  and  of  helplessness 
under  sin,  was  oppressive.  The  thing  was,  by  giving 
a  fuller  idea  of  righteousness,  to  reapply  emotion  to  it, 
and  by  thus  reapplying  emotion,  to  disperse  the 
feeling  of  being  amiss  and  helpless,  to  give  the  sense 
of  being  right  and  effective ;  to  restore,  in  short,  to 
righteousness  the  sanction  of  happiness. 

But  this  could  only  be  done  by  attending  to  that 
inward  world  of  feelings  and  dispositions  which 
Judaism  had  too  much  neglected.  The  first  need, 
therefore,  for  Israel  at  that  time,  was  to  make  religion 
cease  to  be  mainly  a  national  and  social  matter,  and 
become  mainly  a  personal  matter.  "Thou  blind 
Pharisee,  cleanse  first  the  inside  of  the  cup,  that  the 
outside  may  be  clean  also  I"1 — this  was  the  very 
ground-principle  in  Jesus  Christ's  teaching.  Instead 
of  attending  so  much  to  your  outward  acts,  attend, 
he  said,  first  of  all  to  your  inward  thoughts,  to  the 
state  of  your  heart  and  feelings.  This  doctrine  has 
perhaps  been  overstrained  and  misapplied  by  certain 
people  since;  but  it  was  the  lesson  which  at  that 
time  was  above  all  needed.  It  is  a  great  progress 
beyond  even  that  advanced  maxim  of  pious  Jews : 
"To  do  justice  and  judgment  is  more  acceptable 
than  sacrifice."2  For  to  do  justice  and  judgment  is 
still,  as  we  have  remarked,  something  external,  and 
may  leave  the  feelings  untouched,  uncleared,  and 
dead.  What  was  wanted  was  to  plough  up,  clear, 
and  quicken  the  feelings  themselves.  And  this  is 
what  Jesus  Christ  did. 

1  Matthew  xxiii.  26.  2  Proverbs  xxi.  o. 


78  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

"My  son,  give  me  thy  heart/"  says  the  teacher  of 
righteousness  in  the  golden  age  of  Israel.1  And 
when  Israel  had  the  Eternal  revealed  to  him,  and 
founded  our  religion,  he  gave  his  heart.  But  the  time 
came  when  this  direct  vision  ceased,  and  Israel's 
religion  was  a  mere  affair  of  tradition,  and  of  doctrines 
and  rules  received  from  without.  Then  it  might  be 
truly  said  of  this  professed  servant  of  the  Eternal : 
"This  people  honour  me  with  their  lips,  but  have 
removed  their  heart  far  from  me,  and  their  fear  toward 
me  is  taught  by  the  precept  of  men."2  With  little 
or  no  power  of  distinguishing  between  what  was  rule 
of  ceremonial  and  what  was  rule  of  conduct,  they 
followed  the  prescriptions  of  their  religion  with  a 
servile  and  sullen  mind,  "precept  upon  precept,  line 
upon  line,  here  a  little  and  there  a  little,"  and  no  end 
to  it  all. 3  What  a  change  since  the  days  when  it  was 
joy  to  the  just  to  do  judgment/^  The  prophets  saw 
clearly  enough  the  evil,  nay,  they  even  could  point  to 
the  springs  which  must  be  touched  in  order  to  work  a 
cure.  But  they  could  not  press  these  springs  steadily 
enough  or  skilfully  enough  to  work  the  cure  them- 
selves. 

Jesus  Christ's  new  and  different  way  of  putting  things 
was  the  secret  of  his  succeeding  where  the  prophets 
failed.  And  this  new  way  he  had  of  putting  things 
is  what  is  indicated  by  the  expression  epieikeia, — an 
expression  best  rendered,  as  we  have  elsewhere  said, 5 

1  Prov.  xxiii.  26.  2  Isaiah  xxix.  13. 

8  Isaiah  xxviii.  13.  4  Prov.  xxi.  15. 

5  St.  Paul  and  Protestantism,  preface,  p.  xix. 


in.]  RELIGION  NEW-GIVEN.  79 

by  these  two  words:  "sweet  reasonableness."  For 
that  which  is  epidkcs  is  that  which  has  an  air  of  truth 
and  likelihood ;  and  that  which  has  an  air  of  truth 
and  likelihood  is  prepossessing.  Now,  never  were 
there  utterances  concerning  conduct  and  righteous- 
ness,— Israel's  master-concern,  and  the  master-topic 
of  the  New  Testament  as  well  as  of  the  Old,  which 
so  carried  with  them  an  air  of  consummate  truth  and 
likelihood  as  Jesus  Christ's  did ;  and  never,  therefore, 
were  any  utterances  so  irresistibly  prepossessing. 
He  put  things  in  such  a  way  that  his  hearer  was  led 
to  take  each  rule  or  fact  of  conduct  by  its  inward 
side,  its  effect  on  the  heart  and  character ;  then  the 
reason  of  the  thing,  the  meaning  of  what  had  been 
mere  matter  of  blind  rule,  flashed  upon  him.  The 
hearer  could  distinguish  between  what  was  only  cere- 
mony, and  what  was  conduct;  and  the  hardest  rule 
of  conduct  came  to  appear  to  him  infinitely  reasonable 
and  natural,  and '  therefore  infinitely  prepossessing. 
A  return  upon  themselves,  and  a  consequent  intuition 
of  the  truth  and  reason  of  the  matter  of  conduct  in 
question,  gave  men  for  right  action  the  clearness, 
spirit,  energy,  happiness,  they  had  lost. 

This  power  of  returning  upon  themselves,  and 
seeing  by  a  flash  the  truth  and  reason  of  things,  his 
disciples  learnt  of  Jesus.  They  learnt  too,  from 
observing  him  and  his  example,  much  which,  without 
perhaps  any  conscious  process  of  being  apprehended 
in  its  reason,  was  discerned  instinctively  to  be  true 
and  life-giving  as  soon  as  it  was  recommended  in 
Christ's  words  and  illustrated  by  Christ's  example. 


80  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

Two  lessons  in  particular  they  learnt  in  this  way,  and 
added  them  to  the  great  lesson  of  self-examination 
and  an  appeal  to  the  inner  man,  with  which  they 
started.  "  WTwever  will  come  after  me,  let  him  renounce 
himself  and  take  up  his  cross  daily  and  follow  me/"1 
was  one  of  the  two.  "  Learn  of  me  that  I  am  mild  and 
lowly  in  heart,  and  ye  shall  find  rest  unto  your  souls/"2 
was  the  other.  Jesus  made  his  followers  first  look 
within  and  examine  themselves ;  he  made  them  feel 
that  they  had  a  best  and  real  self  as  opposed  to  their 
ordinary  and  apparent  one,  and  that  their  happiness 
depended  on  saving  this  best  self  from  being  over- 
borne. To  find  his  oivn  soul, 3  his  true  and  permanent 
self,  became  set  up  in  man's  view  as  his  chief  concern, 
as  the  secret  of  happiness ;  and  so  it  really  is.  "  How 
is  a  man  advantaged  if  he  gain  the  whole  world  and 
suffer  the  loss  of  himself ?"4- — was  the  searching 
question  which  Jesus  made  men  ask  themselves. 
And  then,  by  recommending,  and  still  more  by 
himself  exemplifying  in  his  own  practice,  by  the 
exhibition  in  himself  with  the  most  prepossessing 
pureness,  clearness,  and  beauty,  of  the  two  qualities 
by  which  our  ordinary  self  is  indeed  most  essentially 
counteracted, •self-renouncement  and  mildness,  he  made 
his  followers  feel  that  in  these  qualities  lay  the 
secret  of  their  best  self ;  that  to  attain  them  was  in 
the  highest  degree  requisite  and  natural,  and  that  a 
man's  whole  happiness  depended  upon  it. 

Self-examination,  self-renouncement,  and  mildness, 

1  Luke  ix.  23.  2  Matthew  xi.  29. 

3  Matthew  xvi.  25.  4  Luke  ix.  25. 


in.]  KELIGION  NEW-GIVEN.  81 

were,  therefore,  the  great  means  by  which  Jesus  Christ 
renewed  righteousness  and  religion.  All  these  means 
are  indicated  in  the  Old  Testament :  God  requireth 
truth  in  the  inward  parts  !  Not  doing  thine  own  ways, 
nor  folding  thine  own  pleasure  /  Seek  meekness!^-  But 
how  far  more  strongly  are  they  forced  upon  the 
attention  in  the  New  Testament,  and  set  up  clearly 
as  the  central  mark  for  our  endeavours  !  Thou  blind 
Pharisee,  cleanse  first  the  inside  of  the  cup  that  the  outside 
may  be  clean  also  /2  Whoever  will  come  after  me,  let  him 
renounce  himself  and  take  up  his  cross  daily  and  follow 
me  /3  Learn  of  me  that  I  am  mild  and  lowly  in  heart, 
and  ye  shall  find  rest  unto  your  souls/4'  So  that,  although 
personal  religion  is  clearly  recommended  in  the  Old 
Testament,  nevertheless  these  injunctions  of  the  New 
Testament  effect  so  much  more  for  the  extrication  and 
establishment  of  personal  religion  than  the  general 
exhortations  in  the  Old  to  offer  the  sacrifice  of  righteous- 
ness, to  do  judgment ,5  that,  comparatively  with  the 
Old,  the  New  Testament  may  be  said  to  have  really 
founded  inward  and  personal  religion.  While  the 
Old  Testament  says  :  Attend  to  conduct !  the  New 
Testament  says  :  Attend  to  the  feelings  and  dispositions 
whence  conduct  proceeds  !  And  as  attending  to  conduct 
had  very  much  degenerated  into  deadness  and  for- 
mality, attending  to  the  springs  of  conduct  was  a 
revelation,  a  revival  of  intuitive  and  fresh  percep- 
tions, a  touching  of  morals  with  emotion,  a  discovering 

1  Psalm  li.  6  ;  Isaiah  Iviii.  13  ;  Zephaniah  ii.  3. 
2  Matthew  xxiii.  26.  3  Luke  ix.  23. 

4  Matthew  xi.  29.  5  Ps.  iv.  5  ;  Is.  Ivi.  1. 

VOL.  V.  G 


82  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

of  religion,  similar  to  that  which  had  been  effected 
when  Israel,  struck  with  the  abiding  power  not  of 
man's  causing  which  makes  for  righteousness,  and 
filled  with  joy  and  awe  by  it,  had  in  the  old  days 
named  God  the  Eternal.  Man  came  under  a  new 
dispensation,  and  made  with  God  a  second  covenant. 

III. 

To  rivet  the  attention  on  the  indications  of  personal 
religion  furnished  by  the  Old  Testament ;  to  take  the 
humble,  inward,  and  suffering  "servant  of  God"  of 
the  prophets,  and  to  elevate  this  as  the  Messiah,  the 
seed  of  Abraham  and  of  David,  in  whom  all  nations 
should  be  blessed,  whose  throne  should  be  as  the  days 
of  heaven,  who  should  redeem  his  people  and  restore 
the  kingdom  to  Israel, — was  a  work  of  the  highest 
originality.  It  cannot,  as  we  have  seen,  be  said,  that 
by  the  suffering  servant  of  God,  and  by  the  triumphant 
Messiah,  the  prophets  themselves  meant  one  and  the 
same  person.  But  language  of  hope  and  aspiration, 
such  as  theirs,  is  in  its  very  nature  malleable.  Criti- 
cism may  and  must  determine  what  the  original 
speakers  seem  to  have  directly  meant.  But  the  very 
nature  of  their  language  justifies  any  powerful  and 
fruitful  application  of  it  \  and  every  such  application 
may  be  said,  in  the  words  of  popular  religion,  to  have 
been  lodged  there  from  the  first  by  the  spirit  of  God. 
Certainly  it  was  a  somewhat  violent  exegetical  pro- 
ceeding, to  fuse  together  into  one  personage  Daniel's 
Son  of  Man  coming  with  the  clouds  of  heaven,  the 


in.J  RELIGION  NEW-GIVEN.  83 

first  Isaiah's  "  Branch  out  of  the  root  of  Jesse,"  who 
should  smite  the  earth  with  the  rod  of  his  mouth  and 
reign  in  glory  and  peace  and  righteousness,  and  the 
second  Isaiah's  meek  and  afflicted  Servant  of  God 
charged  with  the  precious  message  of  a  golden  future; 
—to  fuse  together  in  one  these  three  by  no  means 
identical  personages ;  to  add  to  them  the  sacrificial 
lamb  of  the  passover  and  of  the  temple-service,  which 
was  constantly  before  a  Jew's  eyes ;  to  add,  besides, 
the  Prophet  like  to  himself  whom  Moses  promised  to 
the  children  of  Israel ;  to  add,  further,  the  Holy  One 
of  Israel  and  Redeemer,  who  for  the  prophets  was 
the  Eternal  himself ;  and  then  to  say,  that  the  com- 
bination thence  resulting  was  the  Messiah  or  Christ 
whom  all  the  prophets  had  meant  and  predicted,  and 
that  Jesus  was  this  Messiah.  To  us,  who  have  been 
formed  and  fashioned  by  a  theology  whose  set  purpose 
is  to  efface  all  the  difficulties  in  such  a  combination, 
and  to  make  it  received  easily  and  unhesitatingly,  it 
may  appear  natural.  In  itself,  and  with  the  elements 
of  which  it  is  composed  viewed  singly  and  impartially, 
it  cannot  but  be  pronounced  violent. 

But  the  elements  in  question  have  their  chief  use 
and  value,  we  repeat,  not  as  objects  of  criticism;  they 
belong  of  right  to  whoever  can  best  possess  himself  of 
them  for  practice  and  edification.  Simply  of  the  Son 
of  Man  coming  in  the  clouds,  of  the  Branch  of  Jesse 
smiting  the  earth  with  the  rod  of  his  mouth,  slaying 
the  wicked  with  his  breath,  and  re-establishing  in 
unexampled  splendour  David's  kingdom,  nothing 
could  be  made.  With  such  a  Messiah  filling  men's 


84  LITEKATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

thoughts  and  hopes,  the  real  defects  of  Israel  still 
remained,  because  these  chiefly  proceeded  from  Israel's 
making  his  religion  too  much  a  national  and  social 
affair,  too  little  a  personal  affair.  But  a  Messiah  who 
did  not  strive  nor  cry,  who  was  oppressed  and  afflicted 
without  opening  his  mouth,  who  worked  inwardly, 
obscurely,  and  patiently,  yet  failed  not  nor  was 
discouraged  until  his  doctrine  made  its  way  and 
transformed  the  world, — this  was  the  Messiah  whom 
Israel  needed,  and  in  whom  the  lost  greatness  of 
Israel  could  be  restored  and  culminate.  For  the  true 
greatness  of  Israel  was  righteousness  ;  and  only  by  an 
inward  personal  religion  could  the  sense  revive  of 
what  righteousness  really  was, — revive  in  Israel  and 
bear  fruit  for  the  world. 

Instead,  then,  of  "the  Boot  of  Jesse  who  should 
set  up  an  ensign  for  the  nations  and  assemble  the 
outcasts  of  Israel,"1  Jesus  Christ  took  from  prophecy 
and  made  pre-eminent  "  the  Servant  whom  man  de- 
spiseth  and  the  people  abhorreth,"  but  "who  bringeth 
good  tidings,  who  publisheth  peace,  publisheth  salva- 
tion."2 And  instead  of  saying  like  the  prophets : 
"  This  people  must  mend,  this  nation  must  do  so  and 
so,  Israel  must  follow  such  and  such  ways,"  Jesus 
took  the  individual  Israelite  by  himself  apart,  made 
him  listen  for  the  voice  of  his  conscience,  and  said  to 
him  in  effect :  "  If  every  one  would  mend  one,  we 
should  have  a  new  world."  So  vital  for  the  Jews 
was  this  change  of  character  in  their  religion,  that 
the  Old  Testament  abounds,  as  we  have  said,  in 
1  Isaiah  xi.  10,  12.  2  Isaiali  xlix.  7  ;  Hi.  7. 


in.]  RELIGION  NEW-GIVEN.  85 

pointings  and  approximations  to  it ;  and  most  truly 
might  Jesus  Christ  say  to  his  followers,  that  many 
prophets  and  righteous  men  had  desired,  though  un- 
availingly,  to  see  the  things  which  they,  the  disciples, 
saw  and  heard.1 

The  desire  felt  by  pious  Israelites  for  some  new 
aspect  of  religion  such  as  Jesus  Christ  presented,  is, 
undoubtedly,  the  best  proof  of  its  timeliness  and 
salutariness.  Perhaps  New  Testament  witnesses  to 
the  workings  of  this  desire  may  be  received  with 
suspicion,  as  having  arisen  after  the  event  and  when 
the  new  ideal  of  the  Christ  had  become  established. 
Otherwise,  John  the  Baptist's  characterisation  of  the 
Messiah  as  "  the  lamb  of  God  that  taketh  away  the 
sins  of  the  world,"2  and  the  bold  Messianic  turn 
given  in  the  twelfth  chapter  of  St.  Matthew  to  the 
prophecy  there  quoted  from  the  forty-second  chapter 
of  Isaiah,  would  be  evidence  of  the  highest  importance. 
"  A  bruised  reed  breaketh  he  not,"  says  Isaiah  of  the 
meek  servant  and  messenger  of  God,  "  and  a  glimmer- 
ing wick  quencheth  he  not;  he  declareth  judgment 
with  truth;  far  lands  wait  for  his  doctrine."3  "A 
bruised  reed  shall  he  not  break,"  runs  the  passage  in 
St.  Matthew,  "  and  smoking  flax  shall  he  not  quench, 
until  he  send  forth  judgment  unto  victory :  in  his  name 
shall  the  Gentiles  trust."4  The  words,  until  he  send 
forth  judgment  unto  victory,  words  giving  a  clear  Mes- 
sianic stamp  to  the  personage  described,  are  neither 
in  the  original  Hebrew  nor  in  the  Greek  of  the 

1  Matthew  xiii.  17.  2  John  i.  29. 

3  Isaiah  xlii.  3,  4.  4  Matthew  xii.  20,  21. 


86  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP 

Septuagint.  Where  did  the  Gospel-writer  find  them? 
If,  as  is  possible,  they  were  in  some  version  then 
extant,  they  prove  in  a  striking  way  the  existence 
and  strength  of  the  aspiration  which  Jesus  Christ 
satisfied  by  transforming  the  old  popular  ideal  of  the 
Messiah.  But  there  are  in  any  case  signs  of  the 
existence  of  such  an  aspiration,  since  a  Jewish  com- 
mentator, contemporary,  probably,  with  the  Christian 
era  but  not  himself  a  Christian,  assigns  to  this  very 
prophecy  a  Messianic  intention.  And,  indeed,  the 
rendering  of  the  final  words,  in  his  name  shall  the 
Gentiles  trust,1  which  is  in  the  Greek  of  the  Septuagint 
as  well  as  in  that  of  St.  Matthew,  shows  a  similar 
leaning  in  the  Jews  of  Alexandria  some  two  centuries 
before  Christ. 

Signs  there  are  then,  without  doubt,  of  others 
trying  to  identify  the  Messiah  of  popular  hope, — the 
triumphant  Root  of  David,  the  mystic  Son  of  Man,— 
with  an  ideal  of  meekness,  inwardness,  patience,  and 
self-denial.  And  well  might  reformers  try  to  effect 
this  identification,  for  the  true  line  of  Israel's  progress 
lay  through  it !  But  not  he  who  tries  makes  an  epoch, 
but  he  who  effects ;  and  the  identification  which  was > 
needed  Jesus  Christ  effected.  Henceforth  the  true 
Israelite  was,  undoubtedly,  he  who  allied  himself  with 
this  identification;  who  perceived  its  incomparable 
fruitfulness,  its  continuance  of  the  real  tradition  of 

1  These  words  are  imported  from  an  undoubtedly  Messianic 
passage,  the  famous  prediction  of  the  "rod  out  of  the  stem  of 
Jesse "  in  the  eleventh  chapter  of  Isaiah.  Compare,  in  the 
Septuagint,  Isaiah  xi.  10  with  Isaiah  xlii.  4. 


in.]  RELIGION  NEW-CIYKX.  87 

Israel,  its  correspondence  with  the  ruling  idea  of  the 
Hebrew  spirit :  Through  righteousness  to  happiness  !  or, 
in  Bible -words :  To  him  that  oi'dereth  his  conversation 
right  shall  be  shown  the  salvation  of  God/1  That  the 
Jewish  nation  at  large,  and  its  rulers,  refused  to 
accept  the  identification,  shows  simply  that  want  of 
power  to  penetrate  through  wraps  and  appearances  to 
the  essence  of  things,  which  the  majority  of  mankind 
always  display.  The  national  and  social  character  of 
their  theocracy  was  everything  to  the  Jews,  and  they 
could  see  no  blessings  in  a  revolution  which  annulled  it. 
It  has  often  been  remarked  that  the  Puritans  are 
like  the  Jews  of  the  Old  Testament;  and  Mr.  Froude 
thinks  he  defends  the  Puritans  by  saying  that  they, 
like  the  Jews  of  the  Old  Testament,  had  their  hearts 
set  on  a  theocracy,  on  a  fashioning  of  politics  and 
society  to  suit  the  government  of  God.  How  strange 
that  he  does  not  perceive  that  he  thus  passes,  and 
with  justice,  the  gravest  condemnation  on  the  Puri- 
tans as  followers  of  Jesus  Christ  /  At  the  Christian 
era  the  time  had  passed,  in  religion,  for  outward 
adaptations  of  this  kind,  and  for  all  care  about 
establishing  or  abolishing  them.  The  time  had  come 
for  inwardness  and  self-reconstruction, — a  time  to  last 
till  the  self-reconstruction  is  fully  achieved.  It  was 
the  error  of  the  Jews  that  they  did  not  perceive  this ; 
and  the  old  error  of  the  Jews  the  Puritans,  with- 
out the  Jews'  excuse,  faithfully  repeated.  And  the 
blunder  of  both  had  the  same  cause, — a  want  of 
tact  to  perceive  what  is  really  most  wanted  for  the 
1  Psalm  1.  23. 


88  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

attainment  of  their  own  professed  ideal,  the  reign  of 
righteousness. 

When  Jesus  appeared,  his  disciples  were  those  who 
did  not  make  this  blunder.  They  were,  in  general, 
simple  souls,  without  pretensions  which  Jesus  Christ's 
new  religious  ideal  cut  short,  or  self -consequence 
which  it  mortified.  And  any  Israelite  who  was,  on 
the  one  hand,  not  warped  by  personal  pretensions 
and  self-consequence,  and  on  the  other,  not  dull  of 
feeling  and  gross  of  life  like  the  common  multitude, 
might  well  be  open  to  the  spell  which,  after  all,  was 
the  great  confirmation  of  Christ's  religion,  as  it  was 
the  great  confirmation  of  the  original  religion  of 
Israel, — the  spell  of  its  happiness.  "Be  glad,  0  ye 
righteous,  and  rejoice  in  the  Eternal," — the  old  and 
lost  prerogative  of  Israel, — Christianity  offered  to 
make  again  a  living  and  true  word  to  him.1 

IV. 

For  we  have  already  remarked  how  it  is  the  great 
achievement  of  the  Israel  of  the  Old  Testament, 
happiness  being  mankind's  confessed  end  and  aim,  to 
have  more  than  any  one  else  felt,  and  more  than  any 
one  else  succeeded  in  making  others  feel,  that  to 
righteousness  belongs  happiness.  Now,  it  will  be  denied 
by  no  one  that  Jesus,  in  his  turn,  was  eminently 
characterised  by  professing  to  bring,  and  by  being  felt 
to  bring,  happiness.  All  the  words  that  belong  to  his 
mission, — gospel,  kingdom  of  God,  saviour,  grace,  peace, 
1  Psalm  xxxii.  11 ;  xcvii.  12. 


in.]  RELIGION  NEW-GIVEN.  89 

Jinny  water,  "bread  of  life, — are  brimful  of  promise  and 
of  joy.  "  I  am  come,"  he  said,  "  that  ye  might  have  life, 
and  that  ye  might  have  it  more  abundantly;"  "Come 
to  me,  and  ye  shall  find  rest  unto  your  souls  /"  "  I  speak, 
that  my  disciples  may  have  my  joy  fulfilled  in  them- 
selves." l  That  the  operation,  professed  and  actual,  of 
this  "son  of  peace"2  was  to  replace  his  followers  in 
"the  way  of  peace,"3  no  one  can  question.  The 
only  matter  of  dispute  can  be,  how  he  replaced  them 
there. 

Now,  this  we  have  indicated  in  what  has  been  said 
already.  But  that  we  may  show  it  more  clearly,  let 
us  return  for  a  moment  to  what  we  said  of  conduct ; 
— of  conduct,  which  we  found  to  be  three-fourths, 
at  least,  of  human  life,  and  the  object  with  which 
religion  is  concerned.  We  said  of  conduct,  that  it 
is  the  simplest  thing  in  the  world  as  far  as  knowledge 
is  concerned,  but  the  hardest  thing  in  the  world  as 
far  as  doing  is  concerned.  It  is  an  affair,  we  said,  of 
conscience,  which  speaks  plainly  enough  if  we  will 
only  listen  to  it;  but  we  have  to  listen  to  it,  and 
then  we  have  to  follow  it.  If  we  follow  it,  we  shall 
have  the  sense  of  going  right,  succeeding,  in  the  man- 
agement of  our  conduct.  We  added,  that  going  right, 
succeeding,  in  the  management  of  this  vast  concern, 
gave  naturally  the  liveliest  possible  sense  of  satisfac- 
tion and  happiness ;  that  attending  to  it  was  naturally 
the  secret  of  success ;  that  attachment  made  us  attend ; 
and  that  whatever,  therefore,  made  us  love  to  attend 

1  John  x.  10  ;  Matthew  xi.  28,  29  ;  John  xvii.  13. 
2  Luke  x.  6.  »  Luke  i.  79. 


90  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

to  it  must  inspire  us  with  gratitude.  Let  us  take,  to 
guide  ourselves  in  the  New  Testament,  the  help  of 
the  clue  furnished  by  all  this. 

First,  as  to  the  extreme  simplicity  of  the  matter 
concerned;  a  matter  sophisticated,  overlaid,  and 
hidden  in  a  thousand  ways.  The  artless,  unschooled 
perception  of  a  child  is,  Jesus  says,  the  right  organ 
for  apprehending  it :  "  Whosoever  does  not  receive 
the  kingdom  of  God  as  a  little  child,  cannot  enter 
therein."1  And  yet  it  is  so  difficult  of  attainment 
that  it  seems  we  cannot  obtain  it  of  ourselves  :  "  No 
man  can  come  to  me  unless  it  be  given  him  of  my 
Father."  2  The  things  to  be  done  are  so  simple  and 
necessary  that  the  doctrine  about  them  proves  itself  as 
soon  as  we  do  them :  "  Whoever  will  do  God's  will, 
shall  know  of  the  doctrine,  whether  it  be  of  God." 3 
Only  it  is  indispensable  to  do  them.  Speculating  and 
professing  are  absolutely  useless  here,  without  doing  : 
"Why  call  ye  me,  Lord,  Lord,  and  do  not  the  things 
that  I  say  1 " 4  The  great  and  learned  people,  the 
masters  in  Israel,  have  their  authoritative  version  of 
what  righteousness  and  the  will  of  God  is,  of  what 
the  ideal  for  the  Jewish  nation  is,  of  the  correct  way 
to  interpret  the  prophets.  But :  "  Judge  not  accord- 
ing to  the  appearance,  but  judge  righteous  judgment;" 
"beware  of  insincerity/'  "God  sees  the  heart;" 
"  what  comes  from  within,  that  defiles  us."  5  The  new 
covenant,  the  New  Testament,  consists  in  the  reign  of 

1  Mark  x.  15.  2  John  vi.  44,  65. 

3  John  vii.  17.  4  Luke  vi.  46. 

5  John  vii.  24  ;  Luke  xii.  1  ;  1  Samuel  xvi.  7,  and  Luke  xvi. 
15  ;  Mark  vii.  15. 


in.]  KELIGION  NEW-GIVEN.  91 

this  very  inwardness,  in  a  state  of  things  when  God 
"  puts  his  law  in  the  inward  parts  and  writes  it  in 
the  heart," l  in  conscience  being  made  the  test.  You 
can  see,  Jesus  says,  you  can  see  the  leading  religionists 
of  the  Jewish  nation,  with  the  current  notions  about 
righteousness,  God's  will,  and  the  meaning  of  prophecy, 
you  can  see  them  saying  and  not  doing,  full  of  fierce 
temper,  pride,  and  sensuality ; — this  shows  they  can 
be  but  blind  guides  for  you.  The  saviour  of  Israel  is 
he  who  makes  Israel  use  his  conscience  simply  and 
sincerely,  who  makes  him  change  and  sweeten  his 
temper,  conquer  and  annul  his  sensuality.  Such  a 
saviour  will  make  unhappy  Israel  happy  again.  The 
prophets  all  point  to  such  a  saviour,  and  he  is  the 
Messiah,  and  the  promised  happiness  to  Israel  is  in 
him  and  in  his  reign.  He  is,  in  the  exalted  language 
of  prophecy,  the  holy  one  of  God,  the  son  of  God, 
the  beloved  of  God,  the  chosen  of  God,  the  anointed 
of  God,  the  son  of  man  in  an  eminent  and  unique 
sense,  the  Messiah  and  Christ.  In  plainer  language, 
he  is  "  a  man  who  tells  you  the  truth  which  he  has 
heard  of  God;"  who  came  not  of  himself  and  speaks 
not  of  himself,  but  who  "came  forth  from  God," — 
from  the  original  God  of  Israel's  worship,  the  God  of 
righteousness  and  of  happiness  joined  to  righteousness, 
— u  and  is  come  to  you." 2  Israel  is  perpetually  talk- 
ing of  God  and  calling  him  his  Father ;  and  "  every 
one,"  says  Jesus  Christ,  "who  hears  the  Father, 
comes  to  me,  for  I  know  Him,  and  know  His  will, 

1  Jeremiah  xxxi.  33,  34  ;  Hebrews  viii.  8-12. 
2  John  viii.  40,  42  ;  xvi.  27,  28. 


92  LITERATUEE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

and  utter  His  word."1  God's  will  and  word,  in  the 
Old  Testament,  was  righteousness.  In  the  New  Testa- 
ment, it  is  righteousness  explained  to  have  its  essence 
in  inwardness,  mildness,  and  self-renouncement.  This  is, 
in  substance,  the  word  of  Jesus  which  he  who  hears 
"shall  never  see  death;"  of  which  he  who  follows  it 
"shall  know  by  experience  whether  it  be  of  God."2 

But  as  the  Israel  of  the  Old  Testament  did  not 
say  or  feel  that  he  followed  righteousness  by  his  own 
power,  or  out  of  self-interest  and  self-love,  but  said 
and  felt  that  he  followed  it  in  thankful  self -sur- 
render to  "the  Eternal  who  loveth  righteousness,"  and 
that  "the  Eternal  ordereth  a  good  man's  going  and 
maketh  his  way  acceptable  to  Himself"* — so,  in  the 
restoration  effected  by  Jesus,  the  motive  which  is  of 
force  is  not  the  moral  motive  that  inwardness,  mild- 
ness, and  self-renouncement  make  for  man's  happiness, 
but  a  far  stronger  motive,  full  of  ardent  affection  and 
gratitude,  and  which,  though  it  really  has  its  ground 
and  confirmation  in  the  fact  that  inwardness,  mildness, 
and  self-renouncement  do  make  for  man's  happiness, 
yet  keeps  no  consciousness  of  this  as  its  ground.  For 
it  acquired  a  far  surer  ground  in  personal  devotion  to 
Jesus  Christ,  who  brought  the  doctrine  to  his  disciples 
and  made  a  passage  for  it  into  their  hearts ;  in  be- 
lieving that  he  was  indeed  the  Christ  come  from  God ; 
in  following  him,  loving  him.  And  in  the  happiness 
which  thus  believing  in  Jesus  Christ,  following  him,  and 
loving  him,  gives,  it  found  the  mightiest  of  sanctions. 

1  John  vi.  45  ;  viii.  29,  16.  2  John  viii.  51  ;  vii.  17. 

3  Psalm  xi.  7  ;  xxxvii.  23. 


in.]  HELIGION  NEW-GIVEN.  93 

V. 

And  thus  was  the  great  doctrine  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment :  To  righteousness  belongs  happiness  !  made  a  true 
and  potent  word  again.  Jesus  Christ  was  the  Mes- 
siah to  restore  the  all  things  of  Israel,1 — righteousness, 
and  happiness  with  righteousness  ;  to  bring  light  and 
recovery  after  long  days  of  darkness  and  ruin,  and  to 
make  good  the  belief  written  on  Israel's  heart :  The 
righteous  is  an  everlasting  foundation  / 2  But  we  have 
seen  how  in  the  hopes  of  the  nation  and  in  the 
promises  of  prophecy  this  true  and  vital  belief  of 
Israel  was  mixed  with  a  quantity  of  what  we  have 
called  Aberglaube  or  extra-belief,  adding  all  manner  of 
shade  and  circumstance  to  the  original  thought.  The 
kingdom  of  David  and  Solomon  was  to  be  restored  on 
a  grander  scale,  the  enemies  of  Israel  were  to  lick  the 
dust,  kings  were  to  bring  gifts ;  there  was  to  be  the 
Son  of  Man  coming  in  the  clouds,  judgment  given  to 
the  saints  of  the  Most  High,  and  an  eternal  reign  of 
the  saints  afterwards. 

Now,  most  of  this  has  a  poetical  value,  some  of  it 
has  a  moral  value.  All  of  it  is,  in  truth,  a  testimony 
to  the  strength  of  Israel's  idea  of  righteousness.  For 
the  order  of  its  growth  is,  as  we  have  seen,  this  :  "To 
righteousness  belongs  happiness;  but  this  sure  rule  is 
often  broken  in  the  state  of  things  which  now  is;  there 
must,  therefore,  be  in  store  for  us,  in  the  future,  a 
state  of  things  where  it  will  hold  good."  But  none  of 
it  has  a  scientific  value,  a  certitude  arising  from  proof 
1  Matthew  xvii  11  ;  Acts  iii.  21.  2  Prov.  x.  25. 


94  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

and  experience.  And  indeed  it  cannot  have  this,  for 
it  professes  to  be  an  anticipation  of  a  state  of  things 
not  yet  actually  experienced. 

But  human  nature  is  such,  that  the  mind  easily 
dwells  on  an  anticipation  of  this  kind  until  we  come 
to  forget  the  order  in  which  it  arose,  place  it  first 
when  it  is  by  rights  second,  and  make  it  support  that 
by  which  it  is  in  truth  supported.  And  so  there  had 
come  to  be  many  Israelites, — most  likely  they  were 
the  great  majority  of  their  nation, — who  supposed 
that  righteousness  was  to  be  followed,  not  out  of 
thankful  self -surrender  to  "the  Eternal  who  loveth 
righteousness," 1  but  because  the  Ancient  of  Days  was 
to  sit  before  long,  and  judgment  was  to,  be  given  to 
the  saints,  and  they  were  to  possess  the  kingdom, 
and  from  the  kingdom  those  who  did  not  follow  right- 
eousness were  to  be  excluded.  From  this  way  of 
conceiving  religion  came  naturally  the  religious  condi- 
tion of  the  Jews  as  Jesus  at  his  coming  found  it ;  and 
from  which,  by  his  new  and  living  way  of  presenting 
the  Messiah,  he  sought  to  extricate  the  whole  nation, 
and  did  extricate  his  disciples.  He  did  extricate  these, 
in  that  he  fixed  their  thoughts  upon  himself  and  upon 
an  ideal  of  inwardness,  mildness,  and  self-renounce- 
ment, instead  of  a  phantasmagory  of  outward  grandeur 
and  self-assertion.  But  at  the  same  time  the  whole 
train  of  an  extra  -  belief,  or  Aberglaube,  which  had 
attached  itself  to  Israel's  old  creed :  The  righteous  is 
an  everlasting  foundation  !  transferred  itself  to  the  new 
creed  brought  by  Jesus  :  /  am  the  door ;  by  me,  if  any 
1  Psalni  xi.  7. 


in.]  KKLIGION  NEW-tiJVKX.  95 

1 1 1' in  cnlrr  /'/?,  he  shall  be  saved/1  And  there  arose, 
accordingly,  a  new  Aberglaube  like  the  old.  The  mild, 
inward,  self -renouncing  and  sacrificed  Servant  of  the 
Eternal,  the  new  and  better  Messiah,  was  yet,  before 
the  present  generation  passed,  to  come  on  the  clouds 
of  heaven  in  power  and  glory  like  the  Messiah  of 
Daniel,  to  gather  by  trumpet-call  his  elect  from  the 
four  winds,  and  to  set  his  apostles  on  twelve  thrones 
judging  the  twelve  tribes  of  Israel.  The  motive  of 
Christianity, — which  was,  in  truth,  that  pure  souls 
"  knew  the  voice  "  2  of  Jesus  as  sheep  know  the  voice 
of  their  shepherd,  and  felt,  after  seeing  and  hearing 
him,  that  his  doctrine  and  ideal  was  what  they  wanted, 
that  he  was  "indeed  the  saviour  of  the  world,"3 — 
this  simple  motive  became  a  mixed  motive,  adding  to 
its  first  contents  a  vast  extra-belief  of  a  phantasma- 
gorical  advent  of  Jesus  Christ,  a  resurrection  and 
judgment,  Christ's  adherents  glorified,  his  rejectors 
punished  everlastingly. 

And  when  the  generation,  for  which  this  advent 
was  first  fixed,  had  passed  away  without  it,  Christians 
discovered  by  a  process  of  criticism  common  enough  in 
popular  theology,  but  by  which,  as  Bishop  Butler  says  of 
a  like  kind  of  process,  "  anything  may  be  made  out 
of  anything," — they  discovered  that  the  advent  had 
never  really  been  fixed  for  that  first  generation  by  the 
writers  of  the  New  Testament,  but  that  it  was  foretold, 
and  certainly  in  store,  for  a  later  time.  So  the 
Aberglaule  was  perpetuated,  placed  out  of  reach  of  all 

1  Prov.  x.  25  ;  John  x.  9.  2  John  x.  4. 

3  John  iv.  42. 


96  LITEKATUEE  AND  DOGMA.          [CHAP.  in. 

practical  test,  and  made  stronger  than  ever.  With 
the  multitude,  this  Aberglaube,  or  extra -belief,  inevit- 
ably came  soon  to  surpass  the  original  conviction  in 
attractiveness  and  seeming  certitude.  The  future  and 
the  miraculous  engaged  the  chief  attention  of  Chris- 
tians ;  and,  in  accordance  with  this  strain  of  thought, 
they  more  and  more  rested  the  proof  of  Christianity, 
not  on  its  internal  evidence,  but  on  prophecy  and 
miracle. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

THE   PROOF  FROM  PROPHECY. 

"  ABERGLAUBE  is  the  poetry  of  life."  That  men  should, 
by  help  of  their  imagination,  take  short  cuts  to  what 
they  ardently  desire,  whether  the  triumph  of  Israel  or 
the  triumph  of  Christianity,  should  tell  themselves 
fairy-tales  about  it,  should  make  these  fairy-tales  the 
basis  for  what  is  far  more  sure  and  solid  than  the 
fairy-tales,  the  desire  itself, — all  this  has  in  it,  we 
repeat,  nothing  which  is  not  natural,  nothing  blame- 
able.  Nay,  the  region  of  our  hopes  and  presentiments 
extends,  as  we  have  also  said,  far  beyond  the  region 
of  what  we  can  know  with  certainty.  What  we  reach 
but  by  hope  and  presentiment  may  yet  be  true  ;  and 
he  would  be  a  narrow  reasoner  who  denied,  for 
instance,  all  validity  to  the  idea  of  immortality, 
because  this  idea  rests  on  presentiment  mainly,  and 
does  not  admit  of  certain  demonstration.  In  religion, 
above  all,  extra-belief  is  in  itself  no  matter,  assuredly, 
for  blame.  The  object  of  religion  is  conduct ;  and  if 
a  man  helps  himself  in  his  conduct  by  taking  an 
object  of  hope  and  presentiment  as  if  it  were  an 
VOL.  V.  H 


98  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAF. 

object  of  certainty,  he  may  even  be  said  to  gain 
thereby  an  advantage. 

And  yet  there  is  always  a  drawback  to  a  man's 
advantage  in  thus  treating,  when  he  deals  with 
religion  and  conduct,  what  is  extra -belief  and  not 
certain  as  if  it  were  matter  of  certainty,  and  in  mak- 
ing it  his  ground  of  action.  He  pays  for  it.  The  time 
comes  when  he  discovers  that  it  is  not  certain ;  and 
then  the  whole  certainty  of  religion  seems  discredited, 
and  the  basis  of  conduct  gone.  This  danger  attends 
the  reliance  on  prediction  and  miracle  as  evidences  of 
Christianity.  They  have  been  attacked  as  a  part  of 
the  "cheat"  or  "imposture"  of  religion  and  of 
Christianity.  For  us,  religion  is  the  solidest  of 
realities,  and  Christianity  the  greatest  and  happiest 
stroke  ever  yet  made  for  human  perfection.  Predic- 
tion and  miracle  were  attributed  to  it  as  its  supports 
because  of  its  grandeur,  and  because  of  the  awe  and 
admiration  which  it  inspired.  Generations  of  men 
have  helped  themselves  to  hold  firmer  to  it,  helped 
themselves  in  conduct,  by  the  aid  of  these  supports. 
" Miracles  prove"  men  have  said  and  thought,  " that 
the  order  of  physical  nature  is  not  fate,  nor  a  mere 
material  constitution  of  things,  but  the  subject  of  a 
free,  omnipotent  Master.  Prophecy  fulfilled  proves 
that  neither  fate  nor  man  are  masters  of  the  world."1 

And  to  take  prophecy  first.  "  The  conditions,"  it 
is  said,  "which  form  the  true  conclusive  standard  of 
a  prophetic  inspiration  are  these  :  That  the  prediction 
be  known  to  have  been  promulgated  before  the  event; 

1  Davison's  Discourses  on  Prophecy  ;  Discourse  ii.  Part  2. 


iv.]        THE  PROOF  FROM  PROPHECY.        99 

that  the  event  be  such  as  could  not  have  been  foreseen, 
when  it  was  predicted,  by  an  effort  of  human  reason ; 
and  that  the  event  and  the  prediction  correspond 
together  in  a  clear  accomplishment.  There  are  pro- 
phecies in  Scripture  answering  to  the  standard  of  an 
absolute  proof.  Their  publication,  their  fulfilment, 
their  supernatural  prescience,  are  all  fully  ascertained."1 
On  this  sort  of  ground  men  came  to  rest  the  proof  of 
Christianity. 

II. 

Now,  it  may  be  said,  indeed,  that  a  prediction 
fulfilled,  an  exhibition  of  supernatural  prescience, 
proves  nothing  for  or  against  the  truth  and  necessity 
of  conduct  and  righteousness.  But  it  must  be  allowed, 
notwithstanding,  that  while  human  nature  is  what  it 
is,  the  mass  of  men  are  likely  to  listen  more  to  a 
teacher  of  righteousness,  if  he  accompanies  his  teach- 
ing by  an  exhibition  of  supernatural  prescience.  And 
what  were  called  the  "  signal  predictions  "  concerning 
the  Christ  of  popular  theology,  as  they  stand  in  our 
Bibles,  had  and  have  undoubtedly  a  look  of  super- 
natural prescience.  The  employment  of  capital  letters, 
and  other  aids,  such  as  the  constant  use  of  the  future 
tense,  naturally  and  innocently  adopted  by  interpreters 
who  were  profoundly  convinced  that  Christianity 
needed  these  express  predictions  and  that  they  must 
be  in  the  Bible,  enhanced,  certainly,  this  look ;  but  the 
look,  even  without  these  aids,  was  sufficiently  striking. 

Yes,  that  Jacob  on  his  death -bed  should  two 
1  Discourses  ix.  and  xii. 


100  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

thousand  years  before  Christ  have  "  been  enabled,"  as 
the  phrase  is,  to  foretell  to  his  son  Judah  that  "  the 
sceptre  shall  not  depart  from  Judah  until  Shiloh  (or 
the  Messiah)  come,  and  unto  him  shall  the  gathering 
of  the  people  be,"  1  does  seem,  when  the  explanation 
is  put  with  it  that  the  Jewish  kingdom  lasted  till  the 
Christian  era  and  then  perished,  a  miracle  of  predic- 
tion in  favour  of  our  current  Christian  theology. 
That  Jeremiah  should  during  the  captivity  have 
"  been  enabled  "  to  foretell,  in  Jehovah's  name  :  "  The 
days  come  that  I  will  raise  unto  David  a  righteous 
Branch ;  in  his  days  Judah  shall  be  saved,  and  Israel 
shall  dwell  safely ;  and  this  is  his  name  whereby  he 
shall  be  called,  THE  LORD  OUR  RIGHTEOUSNESS!"2 — 
does  seem  a  prodigy  of  prediction  in  favour  of  that 
tenet  of  the  Godhead  of  the  Eternal  Son,  for  which 
the  Bishops  of  Winchester  and  Gloucester  are  so 
anxious  to  do  something.  For  unquestionably,  in  the 
prophecy  here  given,  the  Branch  of  David,  the  future 
Saviour  of  Israel,  who  was  Jesus  Christ,  appears  to 
be  expressly  identified  with  the  Lord  God,  with 
Jehovah.  Again,  that  David  should  say  :  "  The  Lord 
said  unto  my  Lord,  Sit  thou  on  my  right  hand  until  I 
make  thy  foes  thy  footstool," — does  seem  a  prodigy  of 
prediction  to  the  same  effect.  And  so  long  as  these 
prophecies  stand  as  they  are  here  given,  they  no 
doubt  bring  to  Christianity  all  the  support  (and  with 
the  mass  of  mankind  this  is  by  no  means  inconsider- 
able) which  it  can  derive  from  the  display  of  super- 
natural prescience. 

1  Gen.  xlix.  10.  2  Jer.  xxiii.  5,  6. 


iv.]        THE  PROOF  FROM  PROPHECY.        101 


But  who  will  dispute  that  it  more  atjd  more 
becomes  known  that  these  prophecies  *  cannot  stand 
as  we  have  here  given  them1?  Manifestly,'  it  riore 
and  more  becomes  known,  that  the  passage  from 
Genesis,  with  its  mysterious  Shikh  and  the  gathering 
of  the  people  to  him,  is  rightly  to  be  rendered  as 
follows:  "The  pre-eminence  shall  not  depart  from 
Judah  so  long  as  the  people  resort  to  Shiloh  (the  national 
sanctuary  before  Jerusalem  was  won)  ;  and  the  nations 
(the  heathen  Canaanites)  shall  obey  him."  We  here 
purposely  leave  out  of  sight  any  such  consideration  as 
that  our  actual  books  of  the  Old  Testament  came  first 
together  through  the  piety  of  the  house  of  Judah,  and 
when  the  destiny  of  Judah  was  already  traced  ;  and 
that  to  say  roundly  and  confidently  :  "  Jacob  was 
enabled  to  foretell,  The  sceptre  shall  not  depart  from 
Judah,"  is  wholly  inadmissible.  For  this  considera- 
tion is  of  force,  indeed,  but  it  is  a  consideration  drawn 
from  the  rules  of  literary  history  and  criticism,  and 
not  likely  to  have  weight  with  the  mass  of  mankind. 
Palpable  error  and  mistranslation  are  what  will  have 
weight  with  them. 

And  what,  then,  will  they  say  as  they  come  to 
know  (and  do  not  and  must  not  more  and  more  of 

1  A  real  prediction  of  Jesus  Christ's  Godhead,  of  the  kind 
that  popular  religion  desires,  is  to  be  found  in  Benjamin's 
prophecy  of  the  coming,  in  the  last  days,  of  the  King  of  Heaven 
to  judge  Israel,  "because  when  God  came  to  them  in  the  flesh 
they  did  not  believe  in  him  as  their  deliverer."  But  this 
prediction  occurs  in  an  apocryphal  Christian  writing  of  the  end 
of  the  first  century,  the  Testaments  of  the  Twelve  Patriarchs. 
See  Fabricius,  Codex  Pseudepigraphiis  Vetcris  Testamenti,  vol. 
ii.  p.  745. 


102  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

them  corn*)  to  know  it  every  day?)  that  Jeremiah's 
supposed  signal  identification  of  Jesus  Christ  with  the 
Lord  God  of  Israel :  "I  will  raise  to  David  a  righteous 
Branch,  and  this  is  the  name  whereby  he  shall  be 
called,  THE  LORD  OUR  RIGHTEOUSNESS,"  runs  really : 
"  I  will  raise  to  David  a  righteous  branch ;  in  his  days 
Judah  shall  be  saved  and  Israel  shall  dwell  safely; 
and  this  is  the  name  whereby  they  shall  call  them- 
selves :  The  Eternal  is  our  righteousness/"  The  prophecy 
thus  becomes  simply  one  of  the  many  promises  of  a 
successor  to  David  under  whom  the  Hebrew  people 
should  trust  in  the  Eternal  and  follow  righteousness ; 
just  as  the  prophecy  from  Genesis  is  one  of  the  many 
prophecies  of  the  enduring  continuance  of  the  great- 
ness of  Judah.  "The  Lord  said  unto  my  Lord,"  in 
like  manner ; — will  not  people  be  startled  when  they 
find  that  it  ought  instead  to  run  as  follows :  "  The 
Eternal  said  unto  my  lord  the  king," — a  simple 
promise  of  victory  to  a  royal  leader  of  God's  chosen 
people  ? 

III. 

Leslie,  in  his  once  famous  SJiort  and  Easy  Method 
with  the  Deists,  speaks  of  the  impugners  of  the  current 
evidences  of  Christianity  as  men  who  consider  the 
Scripture  histories  and  the  Christian  religion  "  cheats 
and  impositions  of  cunning  and  designing  men  upon 
the  credulity  of  simple  people."  Collins,  and  the 
whole  array  of  writers  at  whom  Leslie  aims  this, 
greatly  need  to  be  re-surveyed  from  the  point  of  view 
of  our  own  age.  Nevertheless,  we  may  grant  that 


iv.]        THE  PROOF  FROM  PROPHECY.        103 

some  of  them,  at  any  rate,  conduct  their  attacks  on 
the  current  evidences  for  Christianity  in  such  a 
manner  as  to  give  the  notion  that  in  their  opinion 
Christianity  itself,  and  religion,  is  a  cheat  and  an 
imposture.  But  how  far  more  prone  will  the  mass  of 
mankind  be  to  hearken  to  this  opinion,  if  they  have 
been  kept  intent  on  predictions  such  as  those  of  which 
we  have  just  given  specimens ;  if  they  have  been  kept 
full  of  the  great  importance  of  this  line  of  mechanical 
evidence,  and  then  suddenly  find  that  this  line  of 
evidence  gives  way  at  all  points  1  It  can  hardly  be 
gainsaid,  that,  to  a  delicate  and  penetrating  criticism, 
it  has  long  been  manifest  that  the  chief  literal  fulfil- 
ment by  Jesus  Christ  of  things  said  by  the  prophets 
was  the  fulfilment  such  as  would  naturally  be  given 
by  one  who  nourished  his  spirit  on  the  prophets,  and 
on  living  and  acting  their  words.  The  great  pro- 
phecies of  Isaiah  and  Jeremiah  are,  critics  can  easily 
see,  not  strictly  predictions  at  all;  and  predictions 
which  are  strictly  meant  as  such,  like  those  in  the  Book 
of  Daniel,  are  an  embarrassment  to  the  Bible  rather 
than  a  main  element  of  it.  The  "Zeit-Geist,"  and 
the  mere  spread  of  what  is  called  enlightenment,  super- 
ficial and  barren  as  this  often  is,  will  inevitably, 
before  long,  make  this  conviction  of  criticism  a 
popular  opinion  held  far  and  wide.  And  then,  what 
will  be  their  case,  who  have  been  so  long  and  sedu- 
lously taught  to  rely  on  supernatural  predictions  as  a 
mainstay  1 

The  same  must  be  said  of  miracles.     The  substitu- 
tion  of   some  other   proof   of   Christianity  for   this 


104  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP.  iv. 

accustomed  proof  is  now  to  be  desired  most  by  those 
who  most  think  Christianity  of  importance.  That  old 
friend  of  ours  on  whom  we  have  formerly  commented,1 
who  insists  upon  it  that  Christianity  is  and  shall  be 
nothing  else  but  this,  "  that  Christ  promised  Paradise 
to  the  saint  and  threatened  the  worldly  man  with 
hell -fire,  and  proved  his  power  to  promise  and  to 
threaten  by  rising  from  the  dead  and  ascending  into 
heaven,"  is  certainly  not  the  guide  whom  lovers  of 
Christianity,  if  they  could  discern  what  it  is  that  he 
really  expects  and  aims  at,  and  what  it  is  which  they 
themselves  really  desire,  would  think  it  wise  to 
follow. 

But  the  subject  of  miracles  is  a  very  great  one ;  it 
includes  within  itself,  indeed,  the  whole  question 
about  "supernatural  prescience,"  which  meets  us 
when  we  deal  with  prophecy.  And  this  great  subject 
requires,  in  order  that  we  may  deal  with  it  properly, 
some  little  recapitulation  of  our  original  design  in  this 
essay,  and  of  the  circumstances  in  which  the  cause  of 
religion  and  of  the  Bible  seems  to  be  at  this  moment 
placed. 

1  St.  Paul  aiid  Protestantism,  p.  132. 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE  PROOF  FROM  MIRACLES. 

WE  have  seen  that  some  new  treatment  or  other  the 
religion  of  the  Bible  certainly  seems  to  require,  for  it 
is  attacked  on  all  sides,  and  the  theologians  are  not 
so  successful  as  one  might  wish  in  defending  it.  One 
critic  says,  that  if  these  islands  had  no  religion  at 
all,  it  would  not  enter  into  his  mind  to  introduce 
the  religious  and  ethical  idea  by  the  agency  of  the 
Bible.  Another,  that  though  certain  commonplaces 
are  common  to  all  systems  of  morality,  yet  the  Bible- 
way  of  enunciating  these  commonplaces  no  longer 
suits  us.  And  we  may  rest  assured,  he  adds,  that  by 
saying  what  we  think  in  some  other,  more  congenial, 
language,  we  shall  really  be  taking  the  shortest  road 
to  discovering  the  new  doctrines  which  will  satisfy 
at  once  our  reason  and  our  imagination.  Another 
critic  goes  farther  still,  and  calls  Bible-religion  not 
only  destitute  of  a  modern  and  congenial  way  of 
stating  its  commonplaces  of  morality,  but  a  defacer 
and  disfigurer  of  moral  treasures  which  were  once  in 
better  keeping.  The  more  one  studies,  the  more, 
says  he,  one  is  convinced  that  the  religion  which  calls 


106  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

itself  revealed  contains,  in  the  way  of  what  is  good, 
nothing  which  is  not  the  incoherent  and  ill-digested 
residue  of  the  wisdom  of  the  ancients.  To  the  same 
effect  the  Duke  of  Somerset, — who  has  been  affording 
proof  to  the  world  that  our  aristocratic  class  are  not, 
as  has  been  said,  inaccessible  to  ideas  and  merely 
polite,  but  that  they  are  familiar,  on  the  contrary, 
with  modern  criticism  of  the  most  advanced  kind, — 
the  Duke  of  Somerset  finds  very  much  to  condemn 
in  the  Bible  and  its  teaching ;  although  the  soul,  he 
says,  has  (outside  the  Bible,  apparently)  one  unassail- 
able fortress  to  which  she  may  retire, — faith  in  God. 
All  this  seems  to  threaten  to  push  Bible-religion 
from  the  place  it  has  long  held  in  our  affections. 
And  even  what  the  most  modern  criticism  of  all 
sometimes  does  to  save  it  and  to  set  it  up  again,  can 
hardly  be  called  very  flattering  to  it.  For  whereas 
the  Hebrew  race  imagined  that  to  them  were  com- 
mitted the  oracles  of  God,  and  that  their  God,  "the 
Eternal  who  loveth  righteousness,"1  was  the  God  to 
whom  "  every  knee  shall  bow  and  every  tongue  shall 
swear,"2  there  now  comes  M.  Emile  Burnouf,  the 
accomplished  kinsman  of  the  gifted  orientalist  Eugene 
Burnouf,  and  will  prove  to  us  in  a  thick  volume3  that 
the  oracles  of  God  were  not  committed  to  a  Semitic 
race  at  all,  but  to  the  Aryan ;  that  the  true  God  is 
not  Israel's  God  at  all,  but  is  "the  idea  of  the 
absolute  "  which  Israel  could  never  properly  master. 
This  "  sacred  theory  of  the  Aryas,"  it  seems,  passed 

1  Psalm  xi.  7.  2  Isaiah  xlv.  23. 

3  La,  Science  des  Religions :  Paris,  1872. 


v.]  THE  PROOF  FROM  MIRACLES.  107 

into  Palestine  from  Persia  and  India,  and  got  posses- 
sion of  the  founder  of  Christianity  and  of  his  greatest 
apostles  St.  Paul  and  St.  John ;  becoming  more  per- 
fect, and  returning  more  and  more  to  its  true  character 
of  a  "  transcendent  metaphysic,"  as  the  doctors  of  the 
Christian  Church  developed  it.  So  that  we  Christians, 
who  are  Aryas,  may  have  the  satisfaction  of  thinking 
that  "  the  religion  of  Christ  has  not  come  to  us  from 
the  Semites,"  and  that  "it  is  in  the  hymns  of  the 
Veda,  and  not  in  the  Bible,  that  we  are  to  look  for 
the  primordial  source  of  our  religion."  The  theory 
of  Christ  is  accordingly  the  theory  of  the  Vedic 
Agni,  or  fire.  The  Incarnation  represents  the  Vedic 
solemnity  of  the  production  of  fire,  symbol  of  force  of 
every  kind,  of  all  movement,  life,  and  thought.  The 
Trinity  of  Father,  Son,  and  Spirit  is  the  Vedic  Trinity 
of  Sun,  Fire,  and  Wind;  and  God,  finally,  is  "a 
cosmic  unity." 

Such  speculations  almost  take  away  the  breath  of 
a  mere  man  of  letters.  What  one  is  inclined  to  say 
of  them  is  this.  Undoubtedly  these  exploits  of  the 
Aryan  genius  are  gratifying  to  us  members  of  the 
Aryan  race.  The  original  God  of  the  Hebrews,  M. 
Burnouf  says  expressly,  "was  not  a  cosmic  unity;" 
the  religion  of  the  Hebrews  "had  not  that  trans- 
cendent metaphysic  which  the  genius  of  the  Aryas 
requires;"  and,  "in  passing  from  the  Aryan  race  to 
the  inferior  races,  religion  underwent  a  deterioration 
due  to  the  physical  and  moral  constitution  of  these 
races."  For  religion,  it  must  be  remembered,  is,  in 
M.  Burnouf  s  view,  fundamentally  a  science;  "  a  meta- 


108  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

physical  conception,  a  theory,  a  synthetic  explanation 
of  the  universe."  Now  "the  perfect  Arya  is  capable 
of  a  great  deal  of  science ;  the  Semite  is  inferior  to 
him."  As  Aryas  or  Aryans,  then,  we  ought  to  be 
pleased  at  having  vindicated  the  greatness  of  our 
race,  and  having  not  borrowed  a  Semitic  religion 
as  it  stood,  but  transformed  it  by  importing  our  own 
metaphysics  into  it. 

And  this  seems  to  harmonise  very  well  with  what 
the  Bishops  of  Winchester  and  Gloucester  -say  about 
"  doing  something  for  the  honour  of  Our  Lord's 
Godhead,"  and  about  "the  infinite  separation  for 
time  and  for  eternity  which  is  involved  in  rejecting 
the  Godhead  of  the  Eternal  Son,  Very  God  of  Very 
God,  Light  of  Light;"  and  also  with  the  Athanasian 
Creed  generally,  and  with  what  the  clergy  write  to 
the  Guardian  about  "eternal  life  being  unquestionably 
annexed  to  a  right  knowledge  of  the  Godhead."  For 
all  these  have  in  view  high  science  and  metaphysics, 
worthy  of  the  Aryas.  But  to  Bible-religion,  in  the 
plain  sense  of  the  word,  it  is  not  flattering;  for  it 
throws  overboard  almost  entirely  the  Old  Testament, 
and  makes  the  essence  of  the  New  to  consist  in  an 
esoteric  doctrine  not  very  visible  there,  but  more  fully 
developed  outside  of  it.  The  metaphysical  element  is 
made  the  fundamental  element  in  religion.  But, 
"the  Bible -books,  especially  the  more  ancient  of 
them,  are  destitute  of  metaphysics,  and  consequently 
of  method  and  classification  in  their  ideas."  Israel, 
therefore,  instead  of  being  a  light  of  the  Gentiles  and 
a  salvation  to  the  ends  of  the  earth,  falls  to  a  place 


v.]         THE  PROOF  FROM  MIRACLES.        109 

in  the  world's  religious  history  behind  the  Arya.  He 
is  dismissed  as  ranking  anthropologically  between  the 
Aryas  and  the  yellow  men ;  as  having  frizzled  hair, 
thick  lips,  small  calves,  flat  feet,  and  belonging,  above 
all,  to  those  "occipital  races"  whose  brain  cannot 
grow  after  the  age  of  sixteen ;  whereas  the  brain  of  a 
theological  Arya,  such  as  one  of  our  bishops,  may  go 
on  growing  all  his  life. 

But  we,  who  think  that  the  old  Testament  leads 
surely  up  to  the  New,  who  believe  that,  indeed, 
"salvation  is  of  the  Jews,"1  and  that,  for  what 
concerns  conduct  or  righteousness  (that  is,  for  what 
concerns  three-fourths  of  human  life),  they  and  their 
documents  can  no  more  be  neglected  by  whoever 
would  make  proficiency  in  it,  than  Greece  can  be 
neglected  by  any  one  who  would  make  proficiency  in 
art,  or  Newton's  discoveries  by  whoever  would  com- 
prehend the  world's  physical  laws, — we  are  naturally  '> 
not  satisfied  with  this  treatment  of  Israel  and  the 
Bible.  And  admitting  that  Israel  shows  no  talent 
for  metaphysics,  we  say  that  his  religious  greatness 
is  just  this,  that  he  does  not  found  religion  on  meta- 
physics, but  on  moral  experience,  which  is  a  much 
simpler  matter ;  and  that,  ever  since  the  apparition 
of  Israel  and  the  Bible,  religion  is  no  longer  what, 
according  to  M.  Burnouf,  to  our  Aryan  forefathers  in 
the  valley  of  the  Oxus  it  was, — and  what  perhaps  it 
really  was  to  them, — a  metaphysical  theory,  but  is 
what  Israel  has  made  it. 

And  what  Israel  made,  and  how  he  made  it,  we 
1  John  iv.  22. 


110  LITERATUEE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

seek  to  show  from  the  Bible  itself.  Thus  we  hope  to 
win  for  the  Bible  and  its  religion,  which  seem  to  us 
so  indispensable  to  the  world,  an  access  to  many  of 
those  who  now  neglect  them.  For  there  is  this  to  be 
said  against  M.  Burnouf's  metaphysics  :  no  one  can 
allege  that  the  Bible  has  failed  to  win  access  for  want 
of  metaphysics  being  applied  to  it.  Metaphysics  are 
just  what  all  our  theology  runs  up  into,  and  our 
bishops,  as  we  know,  are  here  particularly  strong. 
But  we  see  every  day  that  the  making  religion  into 
metaphysics  is  the  weakening  of  religion;  now,  M. 
Burnouf  makes  religion  into  metaphysics  morte  than 
ever.  Yet  evidently  the  metaphysical  method  lacks 
power  for  laying  hold  on  people,  and  compelling  them 
to  receive  the  Bible  from  it;  it  is  felt  to  be  incon- 
clusive as  thus  employed,  and  its  inconclusiveness 
tells  against  the  Bible.  This  is  the  case  with  the  old 
metaphysics  of  our  bishops,  and  it  will  be  the  case 
with  M.  Burnouf's  new  metaphysics  also.  They  will 
be  found,  we  fear,  to  have  an  inconclusiveness  in  their 
recommendation  of  Christianity.  To  very  many  per- 
sons, indeed  to  the  great  majority,  such  a  method,  in 
such  a  matter,  must  be  inconclusive. 


II. 

Therefore  we  would  not  allow  ourselves  to  start 
with  any  metaphysical  conception  at  all,  not  with  the 
monotheistic  idea,  as  it  is  styled,  any  more  than  with 
the  pantheistic  idea ;  and,  indeed,  we  are  quite  sure 
that  Israel  himself  began  with  nothing  of  the  kind. 


v.]  THE  PROOF  FROM  MIRACLES.  Ill 

The  idea  of  God,  as  it  is  given  us  in  the  Bible,  rests, 
we  say,  not  on  a  metaphysical  conception  of  the  ne- 
cessity of  certain  deductions  from  our  ideas  of  cause, 
existence,  identity,  and  the  like;  but  on  a  moral 
perception  of  a  rule  of  conduct  not  of  our  own  making, 
into  which  we  are  born,  and  which  exists  whether  we 
will  or  no ;  of  awe  at  its  grandeur  and  necessity,  and 
of  gratitude  at  its  beneficence.  This  is  the  great 
original  revelation  made  to  Israel,  this  is  his  "Eternal." 

Man,  however,  as  Goethe  says,  never  knows  how 
anthropomorphic  he  is.  Israel  described  his  Eternal  in 
the  language  of  poetry  and  emotion,  and  could  not 
thus  describe  him  but  with  the  characters  of  a  man. 
Scientifically  he  never  attempted  to  describe  him  at 
all.  But  still  the  Eternal  was  ever  at  last  reducible, 
for  Israel,  to  the  reality  of  experience  out  of  which 
the  revelation  sprang ;  he  was  "  the  righteous  Eternal 
who  loveth  righteousness."  They  who  "seek  the 
Eternal,"  and  they  who  "follow  after  righteousness," 
were  identical;  just  as,  conversely,  they  who  "fear 
the  Eternal,"  and  they  who  "depart  from  evil,"  were 
identical. l  Above  all :  "  Blessed  is  the  man  that  feareth 
the  Eternal;"  "it  is  joy  to  the  just  to  do  judgment;" 
"righteousness  tendeth  to  life/'  "  the  righteous  is  an 
everlasting  foundation" 2 

But,  as  time  went  on,  facts  seemed,  we  saw,  to 
contradict  this  fundamental  belief,  to  refute  this  faith 
in  the  Eternal;  material  forces  prevailed,  and  God 
appeared,  as  they  say,  to  be  on  the  side  of  the  big 

1  Isaiah  li.  1  ;  Prov.  iii.  7. 

2  Ps.  cxii.  1  ;  Prov.  xxi.  15  ;  xi.  19  ;  x.  25. 


112  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

battalions.  The  great  unrighteous  kingdoms  of  the 
world,  kingdoms  which  cared  far  less  than  Israel  for 
righteousness,  and  for  the  Eternal  who  makes  for 
righteousness,  overpowered  Israel.  Prophecy  assured 
him  that  the  triumph  of  the  Eternal's  cause  and 
people  was  certain :  Behold,  the  Eternal's  hand  is  not 
shortened,  that  it  cannot  save.  *  The  triumph  was  but 
adjourned  through  Israel's  own  sins :  Your  iniquities 
have  separated  between  you  and  your  God.2  Prophecy 
directed  its  hearers  to  the  future,  and  promised  them 
a  new,  everlasting  kingdom,  under  a  heaven-sent 
leader.  The  characters  of  this  kingdom  and  leader 
were  more  spiritualised  by  one  prophet,  more  mate- 
rialised by  another.  As  time  went  on,  in  the  last 
centuries  before  our  era,  they  became  increasingly 
turbid  and  phantasmagorical.  In  addition  to  his 
original  experimental  belief  in  the  almighty  Eternal 
who  makes  for  righteousness,  Israel  had  now  a  vast 
Aberglaube,  an  after  or  extra-belief,  not  experimental, 
in  an  approaching  kingdom  of  the  saints,  to  be 
established  by  an  Anointed,  a  Messiah,  or  by  "one 
like  the  Son  of  Man,"  commissioned  from  the 
Ancient  of  Days  and  coming  in  the  clouds  of  heaven. 
Jesus  came,  calling  himself  the  Messiah,  the  Son 
of  Man,  the  Son  of  God ;  and  the  question  is,  what  is 
the  true  meaning  of  these  assertions  of  his,  and  of  all 
his  teaching  ?  It  is  the  same  question  we  had  about 
the  Old  Testament.  Is  the  language  scientific,  or  is 
it,  as  we  say,  literary? — that  is,  the  language  of 
poetry  and  emotion,  approximative  language,  thrown 
1  Isaiah  lix.  I.  2  Isaiah  lix.  2. 


v.]         THE  PROOF  FROM  MIRACLES.        113 

out,  as  it  were,  at  certain  great  objects  which  the 
human  mind  augurs  and  feels  after,  but  not  language 
accurately  denning  them  ?  Popular  religion  says,  we 
know,  that  the  language  is  scientific ;  that  the  God 
of  the  Old  Testament  is  a  great  Personal  First  Cause, 
who  thinks  and  loves  (for  this  too,  it  seems,  we  ought 
to  have  added),  the  moral  and  intelligent  Governor 
of  the  universe.  Learned  religion,  the  metaphysical 
theology  of  our  bishops,  proves  or  confirms  this  by 
abstruse  reasoning  from  our  ideas  of  cause,  design, 
existence,  identity,  and  so  on.  Popular  religion  rests 
it  altogether  on  miracle. 

The  God  of  Israel,  for  popular  religion,  is  a  mag- 
nified and  non-natural  man  who  has  really  worked 
stupendous  miracles,  whereas  the  Gods  of  the  heathen 
were  vainly  imagined  to  be  able  to  work  them,  but 
could  not,  and  had  therefore  no  real  existence.  Of 
this  God,  Jesus  for  popular  religion  is  the  Son.  He 
came  to  appease  God's  wrath  against  sinful  men  by 
the  sacrifice  of  himself ;  and  he  proved  his  Sonship 
by  a  course  of  stupendous  miracles,  and  by  the 
wonderful  accomplishment  in  him  of  the  supernatural 
Messianic  predictions  of  prophecy.  Here,  again, 
learned  religion  elucidates  and  develops  the  relation 
of  the  Son  to  the  Father  by  a  copious  exhibition  of 
metaphysics ;  but  for  popular  religion  the  relation- 
ship, and  the  authority  of  Jesus  which  derives  from 
it,  is  altogether  established  by  miracle. 

Now,  we  have  seen  that  our  bishops  and  their 
metaphysics  are  so  little  convincing,  that  many  people 
throw  the  Bible  quite  aside  and  will  not  attend  to  it, 

VOL.  v.  I 


114  LITERATUKE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

because  they  are  given  to  understand  that  the  meta- 
physics go  necessarily  along  with  it,  and  that  one 
cannot  be  taken  without  the  other.  So  far,  then,  the 
talents  of  the  Bishops  of  Winchester  and  Gloucester, 
and  their  zeal  to  do  something  for  the  honour  of  the 
Eternal  Son's  Godhead,  may  be  said  to  be  actual 
obstacles  to  the  receiving  and  studying  of  the  Bible. 
But  the  same  may  now  be  also  said  of  the  popular 
theology  which  rests  the  Bible's  authority  and  the 
Christian  religion  on  miracle.  To  a  great  many 
persons  this  is  tantamount  to  stopping  their  use  of 
the  Bible  and  of  the  Christian  religion ;  for  they 
have  made  up  their  minds  that  what  is  popularly 
called  miracle  never  really  happens  nor  can  happen, 
and  that  the  belief  in  it  arises  out  of  either  ignorance 
or  mistake.  To  these  persons  we  restore  the  use  of 
the  Bible,  if,  while  showing  them  that  the  Bible- 
language  is  not  scientific,  but  the  language  of  common 
speech  or  of  poetry  and  eloquence,  approximative 
language  thrown  out  at  certain  great  objects  of  con- 
sciousness which  it  does  not  pretend  to  define  fully, 
we  convince  them  at  the  same  time  that  this  language 
deals  with  facts  of  positive  experience,  most  moment- 
ous and  real. 

We  have  sought  to  do  this  for  the  Old  Testament 
first,  and  we  now  seek  to  do  it  for  the  New.  But 
our  attempt  has  in  view  those  who  are  incredulous 
about  the  Bible  and  inclined  to  throw  it  aside,  not 
those  who  at  present  receive  it  on  the  grounds 
supplied  either  by  popular  theology  or  by  metaphy- 
sical theology.  For  persons  of  this  kind,  what  we  say 


v.J         THE  PROOF  FROM  MIRACLES.        115 

neither  will  have,  nor  seeks  to  have,  any  constraining 
force  at  all;  only  it  is  rendered  necessary  by  the 
want  of  constraining  force,  for  others  than  themselves, 
in  their  own  theology.  How  little  constraining  force 
metaphysical  dogma  has,  we  all  see.  And  we  have 
shown,  too,  how  the  proof  from  the  fulfilment  in  Jesus 
Christ  of  a  number  of  detailed  predictions,  supposed  to 
have  been  made  with  supernatural  prescience  about 
him  long  beforehand,  is  losing,  and  seems  likely  more 
and  more  to  lose,  its  constraining  force.  It  is  found 
that  the  predictions  and  their  fulfilment  are  not  what 
they  are  said  to  be. 

Now  we  come  to  miracles,  more  specially  so  called. 
And  we  have  to  see  whether  the  constraining  force 
of  this  proof,  too,  must  not  be  admitted  to  be  far  less 
than  it  used  to  be,  and  whether  some  other  source  of 
authority  for  the  Bible  is  not  much  to  be  desired. 


III. 

That  miracles,  when  fully  believed,  are  felt  by 
men  in  general  to  be  a  source  of  authority,  it  is 
absurd  to  deny.  One  may  say,  indeed :  Suppose  I 
could  change  the  pen  with  which  I  write  this  into  a 
penwiper,  I  should  not  thus  make  what  I  write  any 
the  truer  or  more  convincing.  That  may  be  so  in 
reality,  but  the  mass  of  mankind  feel  differently.  In 
the  judgment  of  the  mass  of  mankind,  could  I  visibly 
and  undeniably  change  the  pen  with  which  I  write 
this  into  a  penwiper,  not  only  would  this  which  I 
write  acquire  a  claim  to  be  held  perfectly  true  and 


116  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

convincing,  but  I  should  even  be  entitled  to  affirm, 
and  to  be  believed  in  affirming,  propositions  the  most 
palpably  at  war  with  common  fact  and  experience. 
It  is  almost  impossible  to  exaggerate  the  proneness  of 
the  human  mind  to  take  miracles  as  evidence,  and 
to  seek  for  miracles  as  evidence;  or  the  extent  to 
which  religion,  and  religion  of  a  true  and  admirable 
kind,  has  been,  and  is  still,  held  in  connection  with 
a  reliance  upon  miracles.  This  reliance  will  long 
outlast  the  reliance  on  the  supernatural  prescience  of 
prophecy,  for  it  is  not  exposed  to  the  same  tests.  To 
pick  Scripture-miracles  one  by  one  to  pieces  is  an 
odious  and  repulsive  task ;  it  is  also  an  unprofitable 
one,  for  whatever  we  may  think  of  the  affirmative 
demonstrations  of  them,  a  negative  demonstration  of 
them  is,  from  the  circumstances  of  the  case,  im- 
possible. And  yet  the  human  mind  is  assuredly 
passing  away,  however  slowly,  from  this  hold  of 
reliance  also ;  and  those  who  make  it  their  stay  will 
more  and  more  find  it  fail  them,  will  more  and 
more  feel  themselves  disturbed,  shaken,  distressed, 
and  bewildered. 

For  it  is  what  we  call  the  Time-Spirit  which  is  sap- 
ping the  proof  from  miracles, — it  is  the  "Zeit-Geist" 
itself.  Whether  we  attack  them,  or  whether  we 
defend  them,  does  not  much  matter.  The  human 
mind,  as  its  experience  widens,  is  turning  away  from 
them.  And  for  this  reason :  it  sees,  as  its  experience 
ividens,  how  they  arm.  It  sees  that,  under  certain 
circumstances,  they  always  do  arise;  and  that  they 
have  not  more  solidity  in  one  case  than  another. 


v.]  THE  PROOF  FROM  MIRACLES.  117 

Under  certain  circumstances,  wherever  men  are 
found,  there  is,  as  Shakspeare  says : — 

"  No  natural  exhalation  in  the  sky, 
No  scape  of  nature,  no  distemper'd  day, 
No  common  wind,  no  customed  event, 
But  they  will  pluck  away  his  natural  cause, 
And  call  them  meteors,  prodigies,  and  signs, 
Abortives,  presages,  and  tongues  of  heaven. " 

Imposture  is  so  far  from  being  the  general  rule  in 
these  cases,  that  it  is  the  rare  exception.  Signs  and 
wonders  men's  minds  will  have,  and  they  create  them 
honestly  and  naturally ;  yet  not  so  but  that  we  can 
see  how  they  create  them. 

Roman  Catholics  fancy  that  Bible -miracles  and 
the  miracles  of  their  Church  form  a  class  by  them- 
selves ;  Protestants  fancy  that  Bible-miracles,  alone, 
form  a  class  by  themselves.  This  was  eminently  the 
posture  of  mind  of  the  late  Archbishop  Whately : — 
to  hold  that  all  other  miracles  would  turn  out  to  be 
impostures,  or  capable  of  a  natural  explanation,  but 
that  Bible-miracles  would  stand  sifting  by  a  London 
special  jury  or  by  a  committee  of  scientific  men.  No 
acuteness  can  save  such  notions,  as  our  knowledge 
widens,  from  being  seen  to  be  mere  extravagances, 
and  the  Protestant  notion  is  doomed  to  an  earlier 
ruin  than  the  Catholic.  For  the  Catholic  notion 
admits  miracles, — so  far  as  Christianity,  at  least,  is 
concerned, — in  the  mass;  the  Protestant  notion 
invites  to  a  criticism  by  which  it  must  before  long 
itself  perish.  When  Stephen  was  martyred,  he 
looked  up  into  heaven,  and  saw  the  glory  of  God  and 


118  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

Jesus  standing  on  the  right  hand  of  God.  That,  says 
the  Protestant,  is  solid  fact.  At  the  martyrdom  of 
St.  Fructuosus,  Babylas  and  Mygdone,  the  Christian 
servants  of  the  Roman  governor,  saw  the  heavens 
open,  and  the  saint  and  his  deacon  Eulogius  carried 
up  on  high  with  crowns  on  their  heads.  That  is, 
says  the  Protestant,  imposture  or  else  illusion.  St. 
Paul  hears  on  his  way  to  Damascus  the  voice  of  Jesus 
say  to  him  :  "  Saul,  Saul,  why  persecutest  thou  me  ?" 
That  is  solid  fact.  The  companion  of  St.  Thomas 
Aquinas  hears  a  voice  from  the  crucifix  say  to  the  pray- 
ing saint :  "  Thou  hast  written  well  of  me,  Thomas ; 
what  recompense  dost  thou  desire  ? "  That  is  imposture 
or  else  illusion.  Why  ?  It  is  impossible  to  find  any 
criterion  by  which  one  of  these  incidents  may  establish 
its  claim  to  a  solidity  which  we  refuse  to  the  others. 

One  of  two  things  must  be  made  out  in  order  to 
place  either  the  Bible -miracles  alone,  or  the  Bible- 
miracles  and  the  miracles  of  the  Catholic  Church  with 
them,  in  a  class  by  themselves.  Either  they  must  be 
shown  to  have  arisen  in  a  time  eminently  unfavourable 
to  such  a  process  as  Shakspeare  describes,  to  amplifica- 
tion and  the  production  of  legend ;  or  they  must  be 
shown  to  be  recorded  in  documents  of  an  eminently 
historical  mode  of  birth  and  publication.  But  surely 
it  is  manifest  that  the  Bible-miracles  fulfil  neither  of 
these  conditions.  It  was  said  that  the  waters  of  the 
Pamphylian  Sea  miraculously  opened  a  passage  for 
the  army  of  Alexander  the  Great.  Admiral  Beaufort, 
however,  tells  us  that,  "  though  there  are  no  tides  in 
this  part  of  the  Mediterranean,  a  considerable  depres- 


v.]  THE  PROOF  FROM  MIRACLES.  119 

sion  of  the  sea  is  caused  by  long -continued  north 
winds,  and  Alexander,  taking  advantage  of  such  a 
moment,  may  have  dashed  on  without  impediment."1 
And  we  accept  the  explanation  as  a  matter  of  course. 
But  the  waters  of  the  Red  Sea  are  said  to  have 
miraculously  opened  a  passage  for  the  children  of 
Israel ;  and  we  insist  on  the  literal  truth  of  this  story, 
and  reject  natural  explanations  as  impious.  Yet  the 
time  and  circumstances  of  the  flight  from  Egypt  were 
a  thousand  times  more  favourable  to  the  rise  of  some 
natural  incident  into  a  miracle,  than  the  age  of 
Alexander.  They  were  a  time  and  circumstances  of 
less  broad  daylight.  It  was  said,  again,  that  during 
the  battle  of  Leuctra  the  gates  of  the  Heracleum  at 
Thebes  suddenly  opened,  and  the  armour  of  Hercules 
vanished  from  the  temple,  to  enable  the  god  to  take 
part  with  the  Thebans  in  the  battle.  Probably  there 
was  some  real  circumstance,  however  slight,  which 
gave  a  foundation  for  the  story.  But  this  is  the 
most  we  think  of  saying  in  its  favour;  the  literal 
story  it  never  even  occurs  to  one  of  us  to  believe. 
But  that  the  walls  of  Jericho  literally  fell  down  at 
the  sound  of  the  trumpets  of  Joshua,  we  are  asked  to 
believe,  told  that  it  is  impious  to  disbelieve  it.  Yet 
which  place  and  time  were  most  likely  to  generate  a 
miraculous  story  with  ease, — Hellas  and  the  days  of 
Epaminondas,  or  Palestine  and  the  days  of  Joshua  1 
And  of  documentary  records,  which  are  the  most 
historical  in  their  way  of  being  generated  and  pro- 
pagated, which  the  most  favourable  for  the  admission 
1  Beaufort's  Karamania,  p.  116. 


120  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

of  legend  and  miracle  of  all  kinds, — the  Old  Testa- 
ment narratives  with  their  incubation  of  centuries, 
and  the  New  Testament  narratives  with  their 
incubation  of  a  century  (and  tradition  active  all 
the  while),  or  the  narratives,  say,  of  Herodotus  or 
Plutarch? 

None  of  them  are  what  we  call  critical.  Experi- 
ence of  the  history  of  the  human  mind,  and  of  men's 
habits  of  seeing,  sifting,  and  relating,  convinces  us 
that  the  miraculous  stories  of  Herodotus  or  Plutarch 
do  grow  out  of  the  process  described  by  Shakspeare. 
But  we  shall  find  ourselves  inevitably  led,  sooner  or 
later,  to  extend  the  same  rule  to  all  miraculous  stories; 
nay,  the  considerations  which  apply  in  other  cases, 
apply,  we  shall  most  surely  discover,  with  even  greater 
force  in  the  case  of  Bible-miracles. 


IV. 

This  being  so,  there  is  nothing  one  would  more 
desire  for  a  person  or  document  one  greatly  values, 
than  to  make  them  independent  of  miracles.  And 
with  regard  to  the  Old  Testament  we  have  done  this ; 
for  we  have  shown  that  the  essential  matter  in  the 
Old  Testament  is  the  revelation  to  Israel  of  the 
immeasurable  grandeur,  the  eternal  necessity,  the 
priceless  blessing  of  that  with  which  not  less  than 
three -fourths  of  human  life  is  indeed  concerned, — 
righteousness.  And  it  makes  no  difference  to  the 
preciousness  of  this  revelation,  whether  we  believe 
that  the  Red  Sea  miraculously  opened  a  passage  to 


v.]  THE  PROOF  FROM  MIRACLES.  121 

the  Israelites,  and  the  walls  of  Jericho  miraculously 
fell  down  at  the  blast  of  Joshua's  trumpet,  or  that 
these  stories  arose  in  the  same  way  as  other  stories  of 
the  kind.  But  in  the  New  Testament  the  essential 
thing  is  the  revelation  of  Jesus  Christ.  For  this  too, 
then,  if  one  values  it,  one's  great  wish  must  in  like 
manner  be  to  make  it  independent  of  miracle,  if 
miracle  is  a  stay  which  one  perceives,  as  more  and 
more  we  are  all  coming  to  perceive  it,  to  be  not  solid. 
Now,  it  may  look  at  first  sight  a  strange  thing  to 
say,  but  it  is  a  truth  which  we  will  make  abundantly 
clear  as  we  go  on,  that  one  of  the  very  best  helps  to 
prepare  the  way  for  valuing  the  Bible  and  believing 
in  Jesus  Christ,  is  to  convince  oneself  of  the  liability 
to  mistake  in  the  Bible-writers.  Our  popular  theology 
supposes  that  the  Old  Testament  writers  were  miracu- 
lously inspired,  and  could  make  no  mistakes;  that 
the  New  Testament  writers  were  miraculously  in- 
spired, and  could  make  no  mistakes ;  and  that  there 
this  miraculous  inspiration  stopped,  and  all  writers  on 
religion  have  been  liable  to  make  mistakes  ever  since. 
It  is  as  if  a  hand  had  been  put  out  of  the  sky  present- 
ing us  with  the  Bible,  and  the  rules  of  criticism  which 
apply  to  other  books  did  not  apply  to  the  Bible. 
Now,  the  fatal  thing  for  this  supposition  is,  that  its 
owners  stab  it  to  the  heart  the  moment  they  use  any 
palliation  or  explaining  away,  however  small,  of  the 
literal  words  of  the  Bible  ;  and  some  they  always  use. 
For  instance,  it  is  said  in  the  Eighteenth  Psalm,  that 
a  consuming  fire  went  out  of  the  mouth  of  God,  so 
that  coals  were  kindled  at  it.  The  veriest  literalist 


122  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

will  cry  out :  Every  one  knows  that  this  is  not  to  be 
taken  literally !  The  truth  is,  even  he  knows  that 
this  is  not  to  be  taken  literally ;  but  others  know  that 
a  great  deal  more  is  not  to  be  taken  literally.  He 
knows  very  little ;  but,  as  far  as  his  little  knowledge 
goes,  he  gives  up  his  theory,  which  is,  of  course, 
palpably  hollow.  For  indeed  it  is  only  by  applying 
to  the  Bible  a  criticism,  such  as  it  is,  that  any  man 
makes  out  that  criticism  does  not  apply  to  the 
Bible. 

But  suppose  that  the  Bible  itself  put  forth  (which 
it  does  not)  this  theory,  and  made  its  own  value  all 
depend  on  the  truth  of  it,  then  the  result  would  be, 
at  the  best,  not  firmer  conviction,  but  utter  puzzle 
and  bewilderment.  Contradictions  would  meet  us, 
and  we  should  have  no  means  of  escape  from  them. 
There  would  grow  up  an  irresistible  sense  that  the 
belief  in  miracles  was  due  to  man's  want  of  experience, 
to  his  ignorance,  agitation,  and  helplessness ;  and  yet 
we  should  have  a  book,  which  if  true  was  precious, 
staking  all  its  truth  and  value  upon  its  having  been 
put  out  of  the  sky,  upon  its  being  guaranteed  by 
miracles,  and  upon  their  being  true.  Then  it  is  that 
the  cry,  Imposture  !  would  more  and  more,  in  spite  of 
all  we  could  do,  gather  strength,  and  the  book  be 
thrown  aside  more  and  more. 

But  when  we  convince  ourselves  that,  in  the  New 
Testament  as  in  the  Old,  what  is  given  us  is  words 
thrown  out  at  an  immense  reality  not  fully  or  half  fully 
grasped  by  the  writers,  but,  even  thus,  able  to  affect 
us  with  indescribable  force ;  when  we  convince  our- 


v.]  THE  PROOF  FROM  MIRACLES.  123 

selves  that,  as  in  the  Old  Testament,  we  have  Israel's 
inadequate  yet  inexhaustibly  fruitful  testimony  to 
the  Eternal  that  makes  for  righteousness,  so  we  have  in 
the  New  Testament  a  report  inadequate,  indeed,  but 
the  only  report  we  have,  and  therefore  priceless,  by 
men,  some  more  able  and  clear,  others  less  able  and 
clear,  but  all  full  of  the  influences  of  their  time  and 
condition,  partakers  of  some  of  its  simple  or  its 
learned  ignorance, — inevitably,  in  fine,  expecting 
miracles  and  demanding  them, — a  report,  I  say,  by 
these  men  of  that  immense  reality  not  fully  or  half 
fully  grasped  by  them,  the  mind  of  Christ ; — then  we 
shall  be  drawn  to  the  Gospels  with  a  new  zest  and 
as  by  a  fresh  spell.  We  shall  throw  ourselves  upon 
their  narratives  with  an  ardour  answering  to  the 
value  of  the  pearl  of  great  price  they  hold,  and  to  the 
difficulty  of  reaching  it. 

So,  to  profit  fully  by  the  New  Testament,  the  first 
thing  to  be  done  is  to  make  it  perfectly  clear  to  one- 
self that  its  reporters  both  could  err  and  did  err. 
For  a  plain  person,  an  incident  in  the  report  of  St. 
Paul's  conversion, — which  comes  into  our  minds  the 
more  naturally  as  this  incident  has  been  turned 
against  something  we  have  ourselves  said,1 — would, 
one  would  think,  be  enough.  We  had  spoken  of  the 
notion  that  St.  Paul's  miraculous  vision  at  his  con- 
version proved  the  truth  of  his  doctrine.  We  related 
a  vision  which  converted  Sampson  Staniforth,  one  of 
the  early  Methodists ;  and  we  said  that  just  so  much 
proving  force,  and  no  more,  as  Sampson  Staniforth's 
1  St.  Paul  and  Protestantism,  p.  54. 


124  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

vision  had  to  confirm  the  truth  of  anything  he  might 
afterwards  teach,  St.  Paul's  vision  had  to  establish  his 
subsequent  doctrine.  It  was  eagerly  rejoined  that 
Staniforth's  vision  was  but  a  fancy  of  his  own, 
whereas  the  reality  of  Paul's  was  proved  by  his  com- 
panions hearing  the  voice  that  spoke  to  him.  And 
so  in  one  place  of  the  Acts  we  are  told  they  did ;  but 
in  another  place  of  the  Acts  we  are  told  by  Paul  him- 
self just  the  contrary :  that  his  companions  did  not 
hear  the  voice  that  spoke  to  him.  Need  we  say  that 
the  two  statements  have  been  "reconciled"?  They 
have,  over  and  over  again ;  but  by  one  of  those  pro- 
cesses which  are  the  opprobrium  of  our  Bible-criticism, 
and  by  which,  as  Bishop  Butler  says,  anything  can  be 
made  to  mean  anything.  There  is  between  the  two 
statements  a  contradiction  as  clear  as  can  be.  The 
contradiction  proves  nothing  against  the  good  faith 
of  the  reporter,  and  St.  Paul  undoubtedly  had  his 
vision;  he  had  it  as  Sampson  Staniforth  had  his. 
What  the  contradiction  proves  is  the  incurable  loose- 
ness with  which  the  circumstances  of  what  is  called 
and  thought  a  miracle  are  related;  and  that  this 
looseness  the  Bible-relaters  of  a  miracle  exhibit,  just 
like  other  people.  And  the  moral  is,  what  an  unsure 
stay,  then,  must  miracles  be  ! 

But,  after  all,  that  there  is  here  any  contradiction 
or  mistake,  some  do  deny;  so  let  us  choose  a  case 
where  the  mistake  is  quite  undeniably  clear.  Such  a 
case  we  find  in  the  confident  expectation  and  assertion, 
on  the  part  of  the  New  Testament  writers,  of  the 
approaching  end  of  the  world.  Even  this  mistake 


v.]  THE  PROOF  FROM  MIRACLES.  125 

people  try  to  explain  away ;  but  it  is  so  palpable  that 
no  words  can  cloud  our  perception  of  it.  The  time  is 
short.  The  Lord  is  at  hand.  The  end  of  all  things  is  at 
hand.  Little  children,  it  is  the  final  time.  TJie  Lord's 
coming  is  at  hand;  behold,  the  judge  standeth  before  the 
door.1  Nothing  can  really  obscure  the  evidence  fur- 
nished by  such  sayings  as  these.  When  Paul  told 
the  Thessalonians  that  they  and  he,  at  the  approach- 
ing coming  of  Christ,  should  have  their  turn  after, 
not  before,  the  faithful  dead  : — "  For  the  Lord  himself 
shall  descend  from  heaven  with  a  shout,  with  the 
voice  of  the  archangel  and  with  the  trump  of  God, 
and  the  dead  in  Christ  shall  rise  first,  then  we  which 
are  alive  and  remain  shall  be  caught  up  together  with 
them  in  the  clouds,  to  meet  the  Lord  in  the  air,"  2— 
when  he  said  this,  St.  Paul  was  purely  simply  mistaken 
in  his  notion  of  what  was  going  to  happen.  This  is 
as  clear  as  anything  can  be. 

And  not  only  were  the  New  Testament  writers 
thus  demonstrably  liable  to  commit,  like  other  men, 
mistakes  in  fact ;  they  were  also  demonstrably  liable 
to  commit  mistakes  in  argument.  As  before,  let  us 
take  a  case  which  will  be  manifest  and  palpable  to 
every  one.  St.  Paul,  arguing  to  the  Galatians  that 
salvation  was  not  by  the  Jewish  law  but  by  Jesus 
Christ,  proves  his  point  from  the  promise  to  Abraham 
having  been  made  to  him  and  his  seed,  not  seeds. 

1  1  Cor.  vii.  29  ;  Phil.  iv.  5  ;  1  Peter  iv.  7  ;  1  John  ii.  18  ; 
James  v.  8,  9.     We  have  here  the  express  declarations  of  St. 
Paul,  St.  Peter,  St.  John,  and  St.  James. 

2  1  Thess.  iv.  16,  17. 


126  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

The  words  are  not,  he  says,  "seeds,  as  of  many,  but  as 
of  one ;  to  thy  seed,  which  is  Christ." l  Now,  as  to 
the  point  to  be  proved,  we  all  agree  with  St.  Paul ; 
but  his  argument  is  that  of  a  Jewish  Eabbi,  and  is 
clearly  both  fanciful  and  false.  The  writer  in  Genesis 
never  intended  to  draw  any  distinction  between  one 
of  Abraham's  seed,  and  Abraham's  seed  in  general. 
And  even  if  he  had  expressly  meant,  what  Paul  says 
he  did  not  mean,  Abraham's  seed  in  general,  he  would 
still  have  said  seed,  and  not  seeds.  This  is  a  good 
instance  to  take,  because  the  Apostle's  substantial 
doctrine  is  here  not  at  all  concerned.  As  to  the  root 
of  the  matter  in  question,  we  are  all  at  one  with  St. 
Paul.  But  it  is  evident  how  he  could,  like  the  rest 
of  us,  bring  a  quite  false  argument  in  support  of  a 
quite  true  thesis. 

And  the  use  of  prophecy  by  the  writers  of  the 
New  Testament  furnishes  really,  almost  at  every 
turn,  instances  of  false  argument  of  the  same  kind. 
Habit  makes  us  so  lend  ourselves  to  their  way  of 
speaking,  that  commonly  nothing  checks  us;  but,  the 
moment  we  begin  to  attend,  we  perceive  how  much 
there  is  which  ought  to  check  us.  Take  the  famous 
allegation  of  the  parted  clothes  but  lot-assigned  coat 
of  Christ  as  fulfilment  of  the  supposed  prophecy  in 
the  Psalms :  "  They  parted  my  garments  among  them, 
and  for  my  vesture  did  they  cast  lots."2  The  words 
of  the  Psalm  are  taken  to  mean  contrast,  when  they 
do  in  truth  mean  identity.  According  to  the  rules 
of  Hebrew  poetry,  for  my  vesture  they  did  cast  lots  is 
1  Gal.  iii.  16.  2  Psalm  xxii.  18. 


v.|  TIIK  J'liOOF  FKOM  MIRACLES.  127 

merely  a  repetition,  in  different  words,  of  they  parted 
in>/  garments  among  them,  not  an  antithesis  to  it.  The 
alleged  "prophecy"  is,  therefore,  due  to  a  dealing 
with  the  Psalmist's  words  which  is  arbitrary  and 
erroneous.  So,  again,  to  call  the  words,  a  lone  of  him 
shall  not  be  broken,1  a  prophecy  of  Christ,  fulfilled  by  his 
legs  not  being  broken  on  the  cross,  is  evidently,  the 
moment  one  considers  it,  a  playing  with  words  which 
nowadays  we  should  account  childish.  For  what  do 
the  words,  taken,  as  alone  words  can  rationally  be 
taken,  along  with  their  context,  really  prophesy? 
The  entire  safety  of  the  righteous,  not  his  death. 
Many  are  the  troubles  of  the  righteous,  but  the  Eternal 
clehiereth  him  out  of  all ;  lie,  keepeth  all  his  bones,  so  that 
not  one  of  them  is  broken.2  Worse  words,  therefore, 
could  hardly  have  been  chosen  from  the  Old  Testa- 
ment to  apply  in  that  connection  where  they  come ; 
for  they  are  really  contradicted  by  the  death  of  Christ, 
not  fulfilled  by  it. 

It  is  true,  this  verbal  and  unintelligent  use  of 
Scripture  is  just  what  was  to  be  expected  from  the 
circumstances  of  the  New  Testament  writers.  It  was 
inevitable  for  them ;  it  was  the  sort  of  trifling  which 
then,  in  common  Jewish  theology,  passed  for  grave 
argument  and  made  a  serious  impression,  as  it  has  in 
common  Christian  theology  ever  since.  But  this  does 
not  make  it  the  less  really  trifling;  or  hinder  one 
nowadays  from  seeing  it  to  be  trifling,  directly  we 
examine  it.  The  mistake  made  will  strike  some 
people  more  forcibly  in  one  of  the  cases  cited,  some 
1  See  John  xix.  36.  2  Psalm  xxxiv.  19,  20. 


128  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

in  another,  but  in  one  or  other  of  the  cases  the  mistake 
will  be  visible  to  everybody. 

Now,  this  recognition  of  the  liability  of  the  New 
Testament  writers  to  make  mistakes,  both  of  fact  and 
of  argument,  will  certainly,  as  we  have  said,  more 
and  more  gain  strength,  and  spread  wider  and  wider. 
The  futility  of  their  mode  of  demonstration  from 
prophecy,  of  which  we  have  just  given  examples,  will 
be  more  and  more  felt.  The  fallibility  of  that 
demonstration  from  miracles  to  which  they  and  all 
about  them  attached  such  preponderating  weight, 
which  made  the  disciples  of  Jesus  believe  in  him, 
which  made  the  people  believe  in  him,  will  be  more 
and  more  recognised. 

Eeverence  for  all,  who,  in  those  first  dubious  days 
of  Christianity,  chose  the  better  part,  and  resolutely 
cast  in  their  lot  with  "  the  despised  and  rejected  of 
men !"  Gratitude  to  all,  who,  while  the  tradition 
was  yet  fresh,  helped  by  their  writings  to  preserve 
and  set  clear  the  precious  record  of  the  words  and 
life  of  Jesus !  And  honour,  eternal  honour,  to  the 
great  and  profound  qualities  of  soul  and  mind  which 
some  of  these  writers  display !  But  the  writers  are 
admirable  for  what  they  are,  not  for  what,  by  the 
nature  of  things,  they  could  not  be.  It  was  superi- 
ority enough  in  them  to  attach  themselves  firmly  to 
Jesus;  to  feel  to  the  bottom  of  their  hearts  that 
power  of  his  words,  which  alone  held  permanently, 
— held,  when  the  miracles,  in  which  the  multitude 
believed  as  well  as  the  disciples,  failed  to  hold.  The 
good  faith  of  the  Bible-writers  is  above  all  question,  it 


V.]         THE  PROOF  FROM  MIRACLES.        129 

speaks  for  itself ;  and  the  very  same  criticism,  which 
shows  us  the  defects  of  their  exegesis  and  of  their 
demonstrations  from  miracles,  establishes  their  good 
faith.  But  this  could  not,  and  did  not,  prevent  them 
from  arguing  in  the  methods  by  which  every  one 
around  them  argued,  and  from  expecting  miracles 
where  everybody  else  expected  them. 

In  one  respect  alone  have  the  miracles  recorded 
by  them  a  more  real  ground  than  the  mass  of  miracles 
of  which  we  have  the  relation.  Medical  science  has 
never  gauged, — never,  perhaps,  enough  set  itself  to 
gauge, — the  intimate  connection  between  moral  fault 
and  disease.  To  what  extent,  or  in  how  many  cases, 
what  is  called  illness  is  due  to  moral  springs  having 
been  used  amiss,  whether  by  being  over-used  or  by 
not  being  used  sufficiently,  we  hardly  at  all  know, 
and  we  too  little  inquire.  Certainly  it  is  due  to  this 
very  much  more  than  we  commonly  think ;  and  the 
more  it  is  due  to  this,  the  more  do  moral  therapeutics 
rise  in  possibility  and  importance.1  The  bringer  of 
light  and  happiness,  the  calmer  and  pacifier,  or 
invigorator  and  stimulator,  is  one  of  the  chiefest  of 
doctors.  Such  a  doctor  was  Jesus  ;  such  an  operator, 
by  an  efficacious  and  real,  though  little  observed  and 
little  employed  agency,  upon  what  we,  in  the  language 
of  popular  superstition,  call  the  unclean  spirits,  but 
which  are  to  be  designated  more  literally  and  more 
correctly  as  the  uncleared,  unpurified  spirits,  which 

1  Consult  the  Charmides  of  Plato  (cap.  v.)  for  a  remarkable 
account  of  the  theory  of  such  a  treatment,  attributed  by  Socrates 
to  Zaniolxis,  the  god-king  of  the  Thracians. 

VOL.  V.  K 


130  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

came  raging  and  madding  before  him.  This  his 
own  language  shows,  if  we  know  how  to  read  it. 
"  What  does  it  niatter  whether  I  say,  Thy  sins  are 
forgiven  thee/  or  whether  I  say,  Arise  and  ivalk/"1 
And  again :  "  Thou  art  made  whole ;  sin  no  more,  lest 
a  worse  thing  befall  thee"2  His  reporters,  we  must 
remember,  are  men  who  saw  thaumaturgy  in  all  that 
Jesus  did,  and  who  saw  in  all  sickness  and  disaster 
visitations  from  God,  and  they  bend  his  language 
accordingly.  But  indications  enough  remain  to  show 
the  line  of  the  Master,  his  perception  of  the  large 
part  of  moral  cause  in  many  kinds  of  disease,  and  his 
method  of  addressing  to  this  part  his  cure. 

It  would  never  have  done,  indeed,  to  have  men 
pronouncing  right  and  left  that  this  and  that  was  a 
judgment,  and  how,  and  for  what,  and  on  whom. 
And  so,  when  the  disciples,  seeing  an  afflicted  person, 
asked  whether  this  man  had  done  sin  or  his  parents, 
Jesus  checked  them  and  said  :  "  Neither  the  one  nor 
the  other,  but  that  the  works  of  God  might  be  made 
manifest  in  him."3  Not  the  less  clear  is  his  own 
belief  in  the  moral  root  of  much  physical  disease,  and 
in  moral  therapeutics;  and  it  is  important  to  note 
well  the  instances  of  miracles  where  this  belief  comes 
in.  For  the  action  of  Jesus  in  these  instances,  how- 
ever it  may  be  amplified  in  the  reports,  was  real; 
but  it  is  not,  therefore,  as  popular  religion  fancies, 
thaumaturgy, — it  is  not  what  people  are  fond  of 
calling  the  supernatural,  but  what  is  better  called  the 
non-natural.  It  is,  on  the  contrary,  like  the  grace  of 

1  Matthew  ix.  5.          2  John  v.  14.  3  John  ix.  3. 


v.]  THE  PROOF  FROM  MIRACLES.  131 

Raphael,  or  the  grand  style  of  Phidias,  eminently 
natural ;  but  it  is  above  common,  low-pitched  nature; 
it  is  a  line  of  nature  not  yet  mastered  or  followed  out. 

Its  significance  as  a  guarantee  of  the  authenticity 
of  Christ's  mission  is  trivial,  however,  compared  with 
the  guarantee  furnished  by  his  sayings.  Its  import- 
ance is  in  its  necessary  effect  upon  the  beholders  and 
reporters.  This  element  of  what  was  really  wonderful, 
unprecedented,  and  unaccountable,  they  had  actually 
before  them ;  and  we  may  estimate  how  it  must  have 
helped  and  seemed  to  sanction  that  tendency  which 
in  any  case  would  have  carried  them,  circumstanced 
as  they  were,  to  find  all  the  performances  and  career 
of  Jesus  miraculous. 

But,  except  for  this,  the  miracles  related  in  the 
Gospels  will  appear  to  us  more  and  more,  the  more 
our  experience  and  knowledge  increases,  to  have  but 
the  same  ground  which  is  common  to  all  miracles, 
the  ground  indicated  by  Shakspeare;  to  have  been 
generated  under  the  same  kind  of  conditions  as  other 
miracles,  and  to  follow  the  same  laws.  When  once 
the  "  Zeit-Geist "  has  made  us  entertain  the  notion  of 
this,  a  thousand  things  in  the  manner  of  relating  will 
strike  us  which  never  struck  us  before,  and  will  make 
us  wonder  how  we  could  ever  have  thought  differently. 
Discrepancies  which  we  now  labour  with  such  honest 
pains  and  by  such  astonishing  methods  to  explain 
away, — the  voice  at  Paul's  conversion,  heard  by  the 
bystanders  according  to  one  account,  not  heard  by 
them  according  to  another;  the  Holy  Dove  at  Christ's 
baptism,  visible  to  John  the  Baptist  in  one  narrative, 


132  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

in  two  others  to  Jesus  himself,  in  another,  finally,  to 
all  the  people  as  well ;  the  single  blind  man  in  one 
relation,  growing  into  two  blind  men  in  another ;  the 
speaking  with  tongues,  according  to  St.  Paul  a  sound 
without  meaning,  according  to  the  Acts  an  intelligent 
and  intelligible  utterance, — all  this  will  be  felt  to 
require  really  no  explanation  at  all,  to  explain  itself, 
to  be  natural  to  the  whole  class  of  incidents  to  which 
these  miracles  belong,  and  the  inevitable  result  of  the 
looseness  with  which  the  stories  of  them  arise  and  are 
propagated. 

And  the  more  the  miraculousness  of  the  story 
deepens,  as  after  the  death  of  Jesus,  the  more  does 
the  texture  of  the  incidents  become  loose  and  floating, 
the  more  does  the  very  air  and  aspect  of  things  seem 
to  tell  us  we  are  in  wonderland.  Jesus  after  his 
resurrection  not  known  by  Mary  Magdalene,  taken 
by  her  for  the  gardener ;  appearing  in  another  form, 
and  not  known  by  the  two  disciples  going  with  him 
to  Emmaus  and  at  supper  with  him  there ;  not  known 
by  his  most  intimate  apostles  on  the  borders  of  the 
Sea  of  Galilee; — and  presently,  out  of  these  vague 
beginnings,  the  recognitions  getting  asserted,  then  the 
ocular  demonstrations,  the  final  commissions,  the 
ascension; — one  hardly  knows  which  of  the  two  to 
call  the  most  evident  here,  the  perfect  simplicity  and 
good  faith  of  the  narrators,  or  the  plainness  with 
which  they  themselves  really  say  to  us :  Hehold  a 
legend  growing  under  your  eyes  ! 

And  suggestions  of  this  sort,  with  respect  to  the 
whole  miraculous  side  of  the  New  Testament,  will 


v.]         THE  PROOF  FROM  MIRACLES.        133 

meet  us  at  every  turn ;  we  here  but  give  a  sample  of 
them.  It  is  neither  our  wish  nor  our  design  to 
accumulate  them,  to  marshal  them,  to  insist  upon  them, 
to  make  their  force  felt.  Let  those  who  desire  to  keep 
them  at  arm's  length  continue  to  do  so,  if  they  can,  and 
go  on  placing  the  sanction  of  the  Christian  religion 
in  its  miracles.  Our  point  is,  that  the  objections  to 
miracles  do,  and  more  and  more  will,  without 
insistence,  without  attack,  without  controversy,  make 
their  own  force  felt ;  and  that  the  sanction  of  Chris- 
tianity, if  Christianity  is  not  to  be  lost  along  with  its 
miracles,  must  be  found  elsewhere. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  RECORD. 

Now,  then,  will  be  perceived  the  bearing  and.gravity 
of  what  we  some  little  way  back  said,  that  the  more 
we  convince  ourselves  of  the  liability  of  the  New 
Testament  writers  to  mistake,  the  more  we  really 
bring  out  the  greatness  and  worth  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment. For  the  more  the  reporters  were  fallible  and 
prone  to  delusion,  the  more  does  Jesus  become  inde- 
pendent of  the  mistakes  they  made,  and  unaffected  by 
them.  We  have  plain  proof  that  here  was  a  very 
great  spirit ;  and  the  greater  he  was,  the  more  certain 
were  his  disciples  to  misunderstand  him.  The  depth 
of  their  misunderstanding  of  him  is  really  a  kind  of 
measure  of  the  height  of  his  superiority.  And  this 
superiority  is  what  interests  us  in  the  records  of  the 
New  Testament;  for  the  New  Testament  exists  to 
reveal  Jesus  Christ,  not  to  establish  the  immunity  of 
its  writers  from  error. 

Jesus  himself  is  not  a  New  Testament  writer ;  he 
is  the  object  of  description  and  comment  to  the  New 
Testament  writers.  As  the  Old  Testament  speaks 


CHAP,  vi.]     THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  KECOBD.  135 

about  the  Eternal  and  bears  an  invaluable  witness  to 
him,  without  yet  ever  adequately  in  words  defining 
and  expressing  him;  so,  and  even  yet  more,  do  the 
New  Testament  writers  speak  about  Jesus  and  give 
a  priceless  record  of  him,  without  adequately  and 
accurately  comprehending  him.  They  are  altogether 
on  another  plane  from  Jesus,  and  their  mistakes  are 
not  his.  It  is  not  Jesus  himself  who  relates  his  own 
miracles  to  us ;  who  tells  us  of  his  own  apparitions 
after  his  death ;  who  alleges  his  crucifixion  and 
sufferings  as  a  fulfilment  of  the  prophecy  :  The  Eternal 
Jceepeth  all  the  bones  of  the  righteous  so  that  not  one  of  them 
is  broken  ; l  who  proves  salvation  to  be  by  Christ  alone, 
from  the  promise  to  Abraham  being  made  to  seed  in 
the  singular  number,  not  the  plural.  If,  therefore, 
the  human  mind  is  now  drawing  away  from  reliance 
on  miracles,  coming  to  perceive  the  community  of 
character  which  pervades  them  all,  to  understand 
their  natural  laws,  so  to  speak, — their  loose  mode 
of  origination  and  their  untrustworthiness, — and  is 
inclined  rather  to  distrust  the  dealer  in  them  than  to 
pin  its  faith  upon  him;  then  it  is  good  for  the 
authority  of  Jesus,  that  his  reporters  are  evidently 
liable  to  ignorance  and  error.  He  is  reported  to  deal 
in  miracles,  to  be  above  all  a  thaumaturgist.  But  the 
more  his  reporters  were  intellectually  men  of  their 
nation  and  time,  and  of  its  current  beliefs, — the  more, 
that  is,  they  were  open  to  mistakes, — the  more  certain 
they  were  to  impute  miracles  to  a  wonderful  and  half- 
understood  personage  like  Jesus,  whether  he  would  or 
1  Psalm  xxxiv.  20. 


136  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

no.  He  himself  may,  at  the  same  time,  have  had  quite 
other  notions  as  to  what  he  was  doing  and  intending. 
Again,  the  mistake  of  imagining  that  the  world  was 
to  end,  as  St.  Paul  announces,  within  the  lifetime 
of  the  first  Christian  generation,  is  palpable.  But  the 
reporters  of  Jesus  make  him  announcing  just  the  same 
thing  :  "This  generation  shall  not  pass  away  till  they 
shall  see  the  Son  of  Man  coming  in  the  clouds  with 
great  power  and  glory,  and  then  shall  he  send  his 
angels  and  gather  his  elect  from  the  four  winds."1 
Popular  theology  can  put  a  plain  satisfactory  sense 
upon  this,  but,  as  usual,  through  that  process  described 
by  Butler  by  which  anything  can  be  made  to  mean 
anything;  and  from  this  sort  of  process  the  human 
mind  is  beginning  to  shrink.  A  more  plausible 
theology  will  say  that  the  words  are  an  accommoda- 
tion; that  the  speaker  lends  himself  to  the  fancies 
and  expectations  of  his  hearers.  A  good  deal  of  such 
accommodation  there  is  in  this  and  other  sayings 
of  Jesus ;  but  accommodation  to  the  full  extent 
here  supposed  would  surely  have  been  impossible. 
To  suppose  it,  is  most  violent  and  unsatisfactory. 
Either,  then,  the  words  were,  like  St.  Paul's  announce- 
ment, a  mistake,  or  they  are  not  really  the  very  words 
Jesus  said,  just  as  he  said  them.  That  is,  the 
reporters  have  given  them  a  turn,  however  slight,  a 
tone  and  a  colour,  a  connection,  to  make  them  comply 
with  a  fixed  idea  in  their  own  minds,  which  they 
unfeignedly  believed  was  a  fixed  idea  with  Jesus  also. 
Now,  the  more  we  regard  the  reporters  of  Jesus  as 
1  Matthew  xxiv.  30,  31,  34. 


vi.]  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  RECORD.  137 

men  liable  to  err,  full  of  the  turbid  Jewish  fancies 
about  "the  grand  consummation"  which  were  then 
current,  the  easier  we  can  understand  these  men 
inevitably  putting  their  own  eschatology  into  the 
mouth  of  Jesus,  when  they  had  to  report  his  discourse 
about  the  kingdom  of  God  and  the  troubles  in  store 
for  the  Jewish  nation,  and  the  less  need  have  we  to 
make  Jesus  a  co-partner  in  their  eschatology. 

Again,  the  futility  of  such  demonstrations  from 
prophecy  as  those  of  which  we  have  given  examples, 
and  generally  of  all  that  Jewish  exegesis,  based  on  a 
mere  unintelligent  catching  at  the  letter  of  the  Old 
Testament,  isolated  from  its  context  and  real  meaning, 
of  which  the  New  Testament  writers  give  us  so  much, 
begins  to  disconcert  attentive  readers  of  the  Bible 
more  and  more,  and  to  be  felt  by  them  as  an  embar- 
rassment to  the  cause  of  Jesus,  not  a  support.  Well, 
then,  it  is  good  for  the  authority  of  Jesus,  that  those 
who  establish  it  by  arguments  of  this  sort  should  be 
clearly  men  of  their  race  and  time,  not  above  its  futile 
methods  of  reasoning  and  demonstration.  The  more 
they  were  this,  and  the  more  they  were  sure  to  mix 
up  much  futile  logic  and  exegesis  with  their  presenta- 
tion of  Jesus,  the  less  is  Jesus  himself  responsible  for 
such  logic  and  exegesis,  or  at  all  dependent  upon  it. 
He  may  himself  have  rated  such  argumentation  at 
precisely  its  true  value,  and  have  based  his  mission 
and  authority  upon  no  grounds  but  solid  ones. 
Whether  he  did  so  or  not,  his  hearers  and  reporters 
were  sure  to  base  it  on  their  own  fantastic  grounds 
also,  and  to  credit  Jesus  with  doing  the  same. 


138  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

In  short,  the  more  we  conceive  Jesus  as  almost  as 
much  over  the  heads  of  his  disciples  and  reporters 
then,  as  he  is  over  the  heads  of  the  mass  of  so-called 
Christians  now,  the  more  we  see  his  disciples  to  have 
been,  as  they  were,  men  raised  by  a  truer  moral  sus- 
ceptiveness  above  their  countrymen,  but  in  intellectual 
conceptions  and  habits  much  on  a  par  with  them,  all 
the  more  do  we  make  room,  so  to  speak,  for  Jesus  to 
be  a  personage  immensely  great  and  wonderful ;  as 
wonderful  as  anything  his  reporters  imagined  him  to 
be,  though  in  a  different  manner. 


II. 

We  make  room  for  him  to  be  this,  and  through  the 
inadequate  reporting  of  his  followers  there  breaks  and 
shines,  and  will  more  and  more  break  and  shine  the 
more  the  matter  is  examined,  abundant  evidence  that 
he  was  this.  It  is  most  remarkable,  and  the  best 
proof  of  the  simplicity,  seriousness,  and  good  faith 
which  intercourse  with  Jesus  Christ  inspired,  that 
witnesses  with  a  fixed  prepossession,  and  having  no 
doubt  at  all  as  to  the  interpretation  to  be  put  on 
Christ's  acts  and  career,  should  yet  admit  so  much  of 
what  makes  against  themselves  and  their  own  power 
of  interpreting.  For  them,  it  was  a  thing  beyond  all 
doubt,  that  by  miracles  Jesus  manifested  forth  his 
glory,  and  induced  the  faithful  to  believe  in  him. 
Yet  what  checks  to  this  paramount  and  all-governing 
belief  of  theirs  do  they  report  from  Jesus  himself ! 
Everybody  will  be  able  to  recall  such  checks,  although 


vi.]       THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  KECORD.       139 

he  may  never  yet  have  been  accustomed  to  consider 
their  full  significance.  Except  ye  see  signs  and  wonders, 
ye  mil  not  believe  71 — as  much  as  to  say :  "  Believe  on 
right  grounds  you  cannot,  and  you  must  needs  believe 
on  wrong!"  And  again:  "Believe  me  that  I  am  in 
the  Father  and  the  Father  in  me ;  or  else  believe  for 
the  very  works'  sake  /"2 — as  much  as  to  say  :  "Acknow- 
ledge me  on  the  ground  of  my  healing  and  restoring 
acts  being  miraculous,  if  you  must ;  but  it  is  not  the 
right  ground."  No,  not  the  right  ground;  and  when 
Nicodemus  came  and  would  put  conversion  on  this 
ground  ("  We  know  that  thou  art  a  teacher  come  from 
God,  for  no  one  can  do  the  miracles  that  thou  doest  except 
God  be  with  him "),  Jesus  rejoined :  "  Verily,  verily,  I 
say  unto  thee,  except  a  man  be  born  from  above,  he  can- 
not see  the  kingdom  of  God  ! "  thus  tacitly  changing 
his  disciple's  ground  and  correcting  him.3  Even 
distress  and  impatience  at  this  false  ground  being 
taken  is  visible  sometimes  :  "Jesus  groaned  in  his  spirit 
and  said,  Why  doth  this  generation  ask  for  a  sign  ? 
Verily  I  say  unto  you,  there  shall  no  sign  be  given  to 
this  generation!"4  Who  does  not  see  what  double 
and  treble  importance  these  checks  from  Jesus  to  the 
reliance  on  miracles  gain,  through  their  being  reported 
by  those  who  relied  on  miracles  devoutly  ?  Who  does 
not  see  what  a  clue  they  offer  as  to  the  real  mind  of 
Jesus  1  To  convey  at  all  to  such  hearers  of  him  that 
there  was  any  objection  to  miracles,  his  own  sense  of 
the  objection  must  have  been  profound;  and  to  get 

1  John  iv.  48.  2  John  xiv.  11. 

3  John  iii.  2,  3.  *  Mark  viii.  12. 


UO  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

them,  who  neither  shared  nor  understood  it,  to  repeat 
it  a  few  times,  he  must  have  repeated  it  many  times. 
Take,  again,  the  eschatology  of  the  disciples,  their 
notion  of  the  final  things,  and  of  the  approaching 
great  judgment  and  end  of  the  world.  This  consisted 
mainly  in  a  literal  appropriation  of  the  apocalyptic 
pictures  of  the  book  of  Daniel  and  the  book  of 
Enoch,  and  a  transference  of  them  to  Jesus  Christ 
and  his  kingdom.  It  is  not  surprising,  certainly,  that 
men  with  the  mental  range  of  their  time,  and  with  so 
little  flexibility  of  thought  that  when  Jesus  told 
them  to  beware  of  "the  leaven  of  the  Pharisees,"1  or 
when  he  called  himself  "the  bread  of  life"  and  said, 
He  that  eateth  me  shall  live  by  me, 2  they  stuck  hopelessly 
fast  in  the  literal  meaning  of  the  words,  and  were 
accordingly  puzzled  or  else  offended  by  them, — it  is 
not  surprising  that  these  men  should  have  been  incap- 
able of  dealing  in  a  large  spirit  with  prophecies  like 
those  of  Daniel,  that  they  should  have  applied  them 
to  Jesus  narrowly  and  literally,  and  should  there- 
fore have  conceived  his  kingdom  unintelligently. 
This  is  not  remarkable;  what  is  remarkable  is,  that 
they  should  themselves  supply  us  with  their  Master's 
blame  of  their  too  literal  criticism,  his  famous  sen- 
tence :  "The  kingdom  of  God  is  within  you  !"3  Such 
an  account  of  the  kingdom  of  God  has  more  right, 
even  if  recorded  only  once,  to  pass  with  us  for  Jesus 
Christ's  own  account,  than  the  common  materialising 
accounts,  if  repeated  twenty  times ;  for  it  was  mani- 

1  Matthew  xvi.  6-12.  2  John  vi.  48,  57. 

3  Luke  xvii.  21. 


VI.]       THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  RECORD.       141 

festly  quite  foreign  to  the  disciples'  own  notions,  and 
they  could  never  have  invented  it.  Evidence  of  the 
same  kind,  again,  evidence  borne  by  the  reporters 
themselves  against  their  own  power  of  rightly  under- 
standing what  their  Master,  on  this  topic  of  the 
kingdom  of  God  and  its  coming,  meant  to  say,  is 
Christ's  warning  to  his  apostles,  that  the  subject  of 
final  things  was  one  where  they  were  all  out  of  their 
depth  :  "It  is  not  for  you  to  know  the  times  and  seasons 
which  the  Father  hath  put  in  his  own  power."1 

So,  too,  with  the  use  of  prophecy  and  of  the  Old 
Testament  generally.  A  very  small  experience  of 
Jewish  exegesis  will  convince  us  that,  in  the  disciples, 
their  catching  at  the  letter  of  the  Scriptures,  and 
mistaking  this  play  with  words  for  serious  argument, 
was  nothing  extraordinary.  The  extraordinary  thing 
is  that  Jesus,  even  in  the  report  of  these  critics,  uses 
Scripture  in  a  totally  different  manner ;  he  wields  it 
as  an  instrument  of  which  he  truly  possesses  the  use. 
Either  he  puts  prophecy  into  act,  and  by  xhe  startling 
point  thus  made  he  engages  the  popular  imagination 
on  his  side,  makes  the  popular  familiarity  with  pro- 
phecy serve  him ;  as  when  he  rides  into  Jerusalem  on 
an  ass,  or  clears  the  Temple  of  buyers  and  sellers. 
Or  else  he  applies  Scripture  in  what  is  called  "a 
superior  spirit,"  to  make  it  yield  to  narrow-minded 
hearers  a  lesson  of  wisdom ;  as,  for  instance,  to  rebuke 
a  superstitious  observance  of  the  Sabbath  he  employs 
the  incident  of  David's  taking  the  shewbread.  His 
reporters,  in  short,  are  the  servants  of  the  Scripture- 
1  Acts  i.  7. 


142  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

letter,  Jesus  is  its  master;  and  it  is  from  the  very 
men  who  were  servants  to  it  themselves,  that  we 
learn  that  he  was  master  of  it.  How  signal,  therefore, 
must  this  mastery  have  been !  how  eminently  and 
strikingly  different  from  the  treatment  known  and 
practised  by  the  disciples  themselves  ! 

Finally,  for  the  reporters  of  Jesus  the  rule  was, 
undoubtedly,  that  men  "believed  on  Jesus  when 
they  saw  the  miracles  which  he  did."  l  Miracles  were 
in  these  reporters'  eyes,  beyond  question,  the  evi- 
dence of  the  Christian  religion.  And  yet  these  same 
reporters  indicate  another  and  a  totally  different  evi- 
dence offered  for  the  Christian  religion  by  Christ  him- 
self. Every  one  that  heareth  and  learneth  from  the  Father 
cometh  unto  me.  2  As  the  Father  hath  taught  me,  so  I 
speak;*  he  that  is  of  God  heareth  the  words  of  God;*  if 
God  was  your  Father,  ye  would  have  loved  me/5  This  is 
inward  evidence,  direct  evidence.  From  that  previous 
knowledge  of  God,  as  "  the  Eternal  that  loveth  right- 
eousness," which  Israel  possessed,  the  hearers  of 
Jesus  could  and  should  have  concluded  irresistibly, 
when  they  heard  his  words,  that  he  came  from  God. 
Now,  miracles  are  outward  evidence,  indirect  evidence, 
not  conclusive  in  this  fashion.  To  walk  on  the  sea 
cannot  really  prove  a  man  to  proceed  from  the  Eternal 
that  loveth  righteousness ;  although  undoubtedly,  as 
we  have  said,  a  man  who  walks  on  the  sea  will  be 
able  to  make  the  mass  of  mankind  believe  about  him 
almost  anything  he  chooses  to  say.  But  there  is, 

1  John  ii.  23.  2  John  vi.  45. 

3  John  viii.  28.         4  John  viii.  47.        5  John  viii.  42. 


VI.]       THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  RECORD.       143 

after  all,  no  necessary  connection  between  walking  on 
the  sea  and  proceeding  from  the  Eternal  that  loveth 
righteousness.  Jesus  propounds,  on  the  other  hand, 
an  evidence  of  which  the  whole  force  lies  in  the 
necessary  connection  between  the  proving  matter  and 
the  power  that  makes  for  righteousness.  This  is  his 
evidence  for  the  Christian  religion. 

His  disciples  felt  the  force  of  the  evidence,  indeed. 
Peter's  answer  to  the  question  "Will  ye  also  go 
away  ?" — "  To  whom  should  we  go  ?  thou  hast  the  words 
of  eternal  life  /" 1 — proves  it.  But  feeling  the  force  of 
a  thing  is  very  different  from  understanding  and  pos- 
sessing it.  The  evidence,  which  the  disciples  were 
conscious  of  understanding  and  possessing,  was  the  evi- 
dence from  miracles.  And  yet,  in  their  report,  Jesus 
is  plainly  shown  to  us  insisting  on  a  different  evidence, 
an  internal  one.  The  character  of  the  reporters  gives 
to  this  indication  a  paramount  importance.  That 
they  should  indicate  this  internal  evidence  once,  as 
the  evidence  on  which  Jesus  insisted,  is  more  signifi- 
cant, we  say,  than  their  indicating,  twenty  times,  the 
evidence  from  miracles  as  the  evidence  naturally  con- 
vincing to  mankind,  and  recommended,  as  they  thought, 
by  Jesus.  The  notion  of  the  one  evidence  they  would 
have  of  themselves ;  the  notion  of  the  other  they  could 
only  get  from  a  superior  mind.  This  mind  must  have 
been  full  of  it  to  induce  them  to  feel  it  at  all ;  and 
their  exhibition  of  it,  even  then,  must  of  necessity  be 
inadequate  and  broken. 

But  is  it  possible  to  overrate  the  value  of  the  ground 
1  John  vi.  68. 


144  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

thus  gained  for  showing  the  riches  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment to  those  who,  sick  of  the  popular  arguments 
from  prophecy,  sick  of  the  popular  arguments  from 
miracles,  are  for  casting  the  New  Testament  aside 
altogether  1  The  book  contains  all  that  we  know  of 
a  wonderful  spirit,  far  above  the  heads  of  his  reporters, 
still  farther  above  the  head  of  our  popular  theology, 
which  has  added  its  own  misunderstanding  of  the 
reporters  to  the  reporters'  misunderstanding  of  Jesus. 
And  it  was  quite  inevitable  that  anything  so  superior 
and  so  profound  should  be  imperfectly  understood  by 
those  amongst  whom  it  first  appeared,  and  for  a  very 
long  time  afterwards ;  and  that  it  should  come  at  last 
gradually  to  stand  out  clearer  only  by  time, — Time, 
as  the  Greek  maxim  says,  the  wisest  of  all  things,  for  he 
is  the  unfailing  discoverer. 

Yet,  however  much  is  discovered,  the  object  of 
our  scrutiny  must  still  be  beyond  us,  must  still 
transcend  our  adequate  knowledge,  if  for  no  other 
reason,  because  of  the  character  of  the  first  and  only 
records  of  him.  But  in  the  view  now  taken  we  have, 
— even  at  the  point  to  which  we  have  already  come, 
— at  least  a  wonderful  figure  transcending  his  time, 
transcending  his  disciples,  attaching  them,  but  trans- 
cending them ;  in  very  much  that  he  uttered  going 
far  above  their  heads,  treating  Scripture  and  prophecy 
like  a  master  while  they  treated  it  like  children, 
resting  his  doctrine  on  internal  evidence  while  they 
rested  it  on  miracles ;  and  yet,  by  his  incomparable 
lucidity  and  penetrativeness,  planting  his  profound 
veins  of  thought  in  their  memory  along  with  their 


iv.]       THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  RECOKD.       145 

own  notions  and  prepossessions,  to  come  out  all 
mixed  up  together,  but  still  distinguishable  one  day 
and  separable ; — and  leaving  his  word  thus  to  bear 
fruit  for  the  future. 

III. 

Surely  to  follow  and  extract  these  veins  of  true 
ore  is  a  wise  man's  business;  not  to  let  them  lie 
neglected  and  unused,  because  the  beds  where  they 
are  found  are  not  all  of  the  same  quality  with  them. 
The  beds  are  invaluable  because  they  contain  the  ore ; 
and  though  the  search  for  it  in  them  is  undoubtedly 
a  grave  and  difficult  quest,  yet  it  is  not  a  quest  of  the 
elaborate  and  endless  kind  that  it  will  at  first,  per- 
haps, be  fancied  to  be.  It  is  a  quest  with  this  for  its 
governing  idea:  Jesus  urn  over  the  heads  of  his  reporters; 
what,  therefore,  in  their  report  of  him,  is  Jesus(and  what 
is  the  reporters  ? 

Now,  this  excludes  as  unessential  much  of  the 
criticism  which  is  bestowed  on  the  New  Testament, 
and  gives  a  sure  point  of  view  for  the  remainder. 
And  what  it  excludes  are  those  questions  as  to  the 
exact  date,  the  real  authorship,  the  first  publication, 
the  rank  of  priority,  of  the  Gospels; — questions  which 
have  a  great  attraction  for  critics,  which  are  perhaps 
in  themselves  good  to  be  entertained,  which  lead  to 
much  close  and  fruitful  observation  of  the  texts,  and 
in  which  very  high  ingenuity  may  be  shown  and 
very  great  plausibility  reached,  but  not  more ; — they 
cannot  be  really  settled,  the  data  are  insufficient. 
A.nd  for  our  purpose  they  are  not  essential.  Neither 

VOL.  V.  L 


146  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

is  it  essential  for  our  purpose  to  get  at  the  very 
primitive  text  of  the  New  Testament  writers,  deeply 
interesting  and  deeply  important  as  this  is.  The 
changes  that  have  befallen  the  text  show,  no  doubt, 
the  constant  tendency  of  popular  Christianity  to  add 
to  the  element  of  theurgy  and  thaumaturgy,  to  increase 
and  develop  it.  To  clear  the  text  of  these  changes, 
will  show  the  New  Testament  writers  to  have  been 
less  preoccupied  with  this  tendency,  and  is,  so  far, 
very  instructive.  But  it  will  not,  by  re-establishing 
the  real  words  of  the  writers,  necessarily  give  the 
real  truth  as  to  Jesus  Christ's  religion;  because  to 
the  writers  themselves  this  religion  was,  in  a  con- 
siderable degree  certainly,  a  theurgy  and  a  thau- 
maturgy, although  not  quite  in  the  mechanical  and 
extravagant  way  that  it  is  in  our  present  popular 
theology. 

For  instance,  the  famous  text  of  the  three  heavenly 
witnesses1  is  an  imposture,  and  an  extravagant  one. 
It  shows  us,  no  doubt,  theologians  like  our  bishops 
already  at  work, — men  with  more  metaphysics  than 
literary  tact,  full  of  the  Aryan  genius,  of  the  notion 
that  religion  is  a  metaphysical  conception ;  anxious 
to  do  something  for  the  thesis  of  "  the  Godhead  of 
the  Eternal  Son,"  or  of  "  the  blessed  truth  that  the 
God  of  the  universe  is  a  person," — or,  as  the  Bishop 
of  Gloucester  writes  it,  "PERSON," — and  so  on.  But 
something  of  the  same  intention  is  unquestionably 
visible, — never,  indeed,  in  Jesus,  but  in  the  author  of 
the  Fourth  Gospel.  Much  of  the  conversation  with 
1  1  John  v.  7. 


vi.]       THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  RECORD.       147 

Nicodemus  is  a  proof  of  it ;  the  forty-sixth  verse  of 
the  sixth  chapter  is  a  signal  proof  of  it.  One  can 
there  almost  see  the  author,  after  recording  Christ's 
words  :  Every  one  that  heareth  and  learneth  of  the  father 
cometh  unto  me,  take  alarm  at  the  notion  that  this  looks 
too  downright  and  natural,  and,  sincerely  persuaded 
that  he  "  did  something  "  for  the  honour  of  Jesus  by 
making  him  more  abstract,  bring  in  and  put  into  the 
mouth  of  Jesus  the  46th  verse  :  Not  that  any  one  hath 
seen  the  father,  except  he  that  is  from  God,  he  hath  seen 
the  father.  This  verse  has  neither  rhyme  nor  reason 
where  it  stands  in  Christ's  discourse,  it  jars  with  the 
words  which  precede  and  follow,  and  is  in  quite 
another  vein  from  them.  Yet  it  is  the  author's  own, 
it  is  no  interpolation. 

Again,  Unitarians  lay  much  stress  on  the  prob- 
ability that  in  the  first  words  of  St.  Mark's  Gospel : 
"  The  beginning  of  the  gospel  of  Jesus  Christ,  the  Son 
of  God,"  the  Son  of  God  is  an  interpolation.  And,  no 
doubt,  if  the  words  are  an  interpolation,  this  shows 
that  the  desire  to  prove  the  dogma  of  Christ's  God- 
head was  not  so  painfully  ever-present  to  the  writer 
of  the  Second  Gospel  as  it  became  to  later  theologians. 
But  it  shows  no  more ;  it  does  not  show  that  he  had 
the  least  doubt  about  Jesus  being  the  Son  of  God. 
Ten  verses  later,  in  an  undisputed  passage,  he  calls 
him  so. 

Again,  in  the  last  chapter  of  the  same  Gospel,  all 
which  follows  the  eighth  verse, — all  the  account  of 
Christ's  resurrection  and  ascension, — is  probably  an 
addition  by  a  later  hand.  But  the  resurrection  is 


148  LITEKATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

plainly  indicated  in  the  first  eight  verses ;  and  that 
the  writer  of  the  Second  Gospel  stops  after  the  eighth 
verse,  proves  rather  that  he  was  writing  briefly  than 
that  he  did  not  believe  in  the  resurrection  and  ascen- 
sion as  much  as,  for  instance,  the  writer  of  the  Third 
Gospel;  unless,  indeed,  there  are  other  signs  (for 
example,  in  his  way  of  relating  such  an  incident  as 
the  Transfiguration)  to  show  that  he  was  suspicious 
of  the  preternatural.  But  there  are  none;  and  he 
plainly  was  not,  and  could  not  have  been. 

Again ;  it  seems  impossible  that  the  very  primitive 
original  of  the  First  Gospel  should  have  made  Jesus 
say,  that  "  the  sign  of  Jonas  "  consisted  in  his  being 
three  days  and  three  nights  in  the  whale's  belly  as 
the  Son  of  Man  was  to  be  a  like  time  in  the  heart  of 
the  earth.1  It  spoils  the  argument,  and  in  the  next 
verse  the  argument  is  given  simply  and  rightly. 
Jonas  was  a  sign  to  the  Jews,  because  the  Ninevites 
repented  at  his  preaching  and  a  greater  than  Jonas 
stood  now  preaching  to  the  Jews.  But  whether  the 
words  are  genuine  (and  there  seems  no  evidence  to 
the  contrary)  in  that  particular  place  or  not,  to  get 
rid  of  them  brings  us  really  but  a  very  little  way, 
when  it  is  plain  that  their  argument  is  exactly  one 
which  the  Evangelists  would  be  disposed  to  use,  and 
to  think  that  Jesus  meant  to  use.  For  so  they  make 
him  to  have  said,  for  instance  :  Destroy  this  temple,  and 
in  three  days  I  will  raise  itupf2  in  prediction  of  his 
own  death  and  resurrection. 

In  short,  to  know  accurately  the  history  of  our 
1  Matthew  xii.  40.  2  John  ii.  19. 


vi.]       THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  RECORD.       149 

documents  is  impossible,  and  even  if  it  were  possible, 
we  should  yet  not  know  accurately  what  Jesus  said 
and  did ;  far  his  reporters  were  incapable  of  rendering  it, 
he  ivas  so  much  above  them.  This  is  the  important  thing 
to  get  firmly  fixed  in  our  minds.  And  the  more  it 
becomes  established  to  us,  the  more  we  shall  see  the 
futility  of  what  is  called  rationalism,  rationalism  proper, 
and  the  rationalistic  treatment  of  the  New  Testament ; 
— of  the  endeavour,  that  is,  to  reduce  all  the  super- 
natural in  it  to  real  events,  much  resembling  what  is 
related,  which  have  got  a  little  magnified  and  coloured 
by  being  seen  through  the  eyes  of  men  having  certain 
prepossessions,  but  may  easily  be  brought  back  to 
their  true  proportions  and  made  historical  and  reason- 
able. A  famous  specimen  of  this  kind  of  treatment  is 
Schleiermacher's  fancy  of  the  death  on  the  cross 
having  been  a  swoon,  and  the  resurrection  of  Jesus  a 
recovery  from  this  swoon.  Victorious  indeed,  what- 
ever may  be  in  other  ways  his  own  shortcomings,  is 
Strauss's  demolition  of  this  fancy  of  Schleiermacher's  ! 
Like  the  rationalistic  treatment  of  Scripture  through- 
out, it  makes  far  more  difficulties  than  it  solves,  and 
rests  on  too  narrow  a  conception  of  the  history  of  the 
human  mind,  and  of  its  diversities  of  operation  and 
production.  It  puts  us  ourselves  in  the  original 
disciples'  place,  imagines  the  original  disciples  to  have 
been  men  rational  in  our  sense  and  way,  and  then 
explains  their  record  as  it  might  be  made  explicable 
if  it  were  ours.  And  it  may  safely  be  said  that  in 
this  fashion  it  is  not  explicable.  Imaginations  so  little 
creative,  and  with  so  substantial  a  framework  of  fact 


150  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

for  each  of  their  wonderful  stories  as  this  theory 
assumes,  would  never  have  created  so  much  as  they 
did ;  at  least,  they  could  not  have  done  so  and 
retained  their  manifest  simplicity  and  good  faith. 
They  must  have  fallen,  we  in  like  case  should  fall, 
into  arrangement  and  artifice. 

But  the  original  disciples  were  not  men  rational  in 
our  sense  and  way.  The  real  wonderfulness  of  Jesus, 
and  their  belief  in  him,  being  given,  they  needed  no 
such  full  and  parallel  body  of  fact  for  each  miracle  as 
we  suppose.  Some  hint  and  help  of  fact,  undoubtedly, 
there  almost  always  was,  and  we  naturally  seek  to 
explore  it.  Sometimes  our  guesses  may  be  right, 
sometimes  wrong,  but  we  can  never  be  sure,  the  range 
of  possibility  is  so  wide;  and  we  may  easily  make 
them  too  elaborate.  Shakspeare's  explanation  is  far 
the  soundest : — 

"No  natural  exhalation  in  the  sky, 
No  scape  of  nature,  no  distemper'd  day, 
No  common  wind,  no  customed  event, 
Bui?  they  will  pluck  away  his  natural  cause, 
And  call  them  meteors,  prodigies,  and  signs, 
Abortives,  presages,  and  tongues  of  heaven." 

And  it  must  be  remembered,  moreover,  that  of 
none  of  these  recorders  have  we,  probably,  the  very 
original  record.  The  whole  record,  when  we  first  get 
it,  has  passed  through  at  least  half  a  century,  or  more, 
of  oral  tradition,  and  through  more  than  one  written 
account.  Miraculous  incidents  swell  and  grow  apace ; 
they  are  just  the  elements  of  a  tradition  that  swell 
and  grow  most.  These  incidents,  therefore,  in  the 


vr.]       THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  RECORD.       151 

history  of  Jesus,  the  preternatural  things  he  did,  the 
preternatural  things  that  befell  him,  are  just  the  parts 
of  the  record  which  are  least  solid.  Beyond  the 
historic  outlines  of  the  life  of  Jesus, — his  Galilean 
origin,  his  preaching  in  Galilee,  his  preaching  in 
Jerusalem,  his  crucifixion, — much  the  firmest  element 
in  the  record  is  his  words.  Happily  it  is  of  these  that 
he  himself  said :  "  The  words  that  I  speak  unto  you, 
they  are  spirit  and  they  are  life."1  But  in  reading 
them,  we  have  still  to  bear  in  mind  our  governing 
idea,  that  they  are  words  of  one  inadequately  compre- 
hended by  his  hearers,  men  though  these  be  of  pureness 
of  heart,  discernment  to  know  and  love  the  good, 
perfect  uprightness  of  intention,  faithful  simplicity. 

What  they  will  have  reported  best,  probably,  is 
discourse  where  there  was  the  framework  of  a  story 
and  its  application  to  guide  them, — discourse  such 
as  the  parables.  Instructive  and  beautiful  as  the 
parables  are,  however,  they  have  not  the  importance 
of  the  direct  teaching  of  Jesus.  But  in  his  direct 
teaching  we  are  on  the  surest  ground  in  single  sen- 
tences, which  have  their  ineffaceable  and  unforgettable 
stamp  :  My  yoke  is  kindly  and  my  burden  light; — Many 
are  called,  few  chosen ; — They  that  are  whole  need  not  a 
physician,  but  they  that  are  sick; — No  man  having  put  his 
hand  to  the  plough,  and  looking  back,  is  fit  for  the  kingdom 
of  God.2  The  longer  trains  of  discourse,  and  many 
sayings  in  immediate  connection  with  miracles,  present 
much  more  difficulty.  Probably  there  are  very  few 

1  John  vi.  63. 
2  Matthew  xi.  30 ;  xxii.  14 ;  ix.  12  ;  Luke  ix.  62. 


152  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

sayings  attributed  to  Jesus  which  do  not  contain  what 
he  on  some  occasion  actually  said,  or  much  of  what 
he  actually  said.  But  the  connection,  the  juncture,  is 
plainly  often  missed  ;  things  are  put  out  of  their  true 
place  and  order.  Failure  of  memory  would  occa- 
sionally cause  this  with  any  reporters ;  failure  of 
comprehension  would  with  the  reporters  of  Jesus 
frequently  cause  it.  The  surrounding  tradition  in- 
sensibly biases  them,  their  love  of  miracles  biases 
them,  their  eschatology  biases  them.  All  these  three 
exercise  an  attraction  on  words  of  Jesus,  and  draw 
them  into  occasions,  placings,  and  turns,  which  are 
not  exactly  theirs.  The  one  safe  guide  to  the 
extrication  and  right  reception  of  what  comes  from 
Jesus  is  the  internal  evidence.  And  wherever  we 
find  what  enforces  this  evidence  or  builds  upon  it, 
there  we  may  be  especially  sure  that  we  are  on  the 
trace  of  Jesus ;  because  turn  or  bias  in  this  direction 
the  disciples  were  more  likely  to  omit  from  his  dis- 
course than  to  import  into  it,  they  were  themselves  so 
wholly  preoccupied  with  the  evidence  from  miracles. 


IV. 

This  is  what  gives  such  eminency  and  value  to  the 
Fourth  Gospel.1  The  confident  certainty  with  which 

1  Some  critics  object  that  the  Fourth  Gospel  lias  been  proved 
by  Baur  to  be  entirely  unhistorical,  and  to  give  for  sayings  of 
Jesus,  wherever  it  does  not  follow  the  synoptics,  the  free 
inventions  of  some  Christian  dogmatist  of  late  date.  So  little 
do  I  think  Baur  to  Imve  proved  this,  that  I  hold  adherence  to  his 
thesis  to  be  a  conclusive  sign  of  the  adherent's  want  of  real 


vi.]  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  RECORD.  153 

Ewald  settles  the  authorship  of  this  gospel,  and  assigns 
it  to  St.  John,  is  an  exhibition  of  that  learned  man's 
weakness.  To  settle  the  authorship  is  impossible,  the 
data  are  insufficient;  but  from  what  data  we  have, 
to  believe  that  the  Gospel  is  St.  John's  is  extremely 
difficult.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  the  stress  which 
Ewald,  following  Luther,  lays  on  this  Gospel,  the 
value  which  he  attributes  to  it,  is  an  exhibition  of 
his  power, — of  his  deep,  sure  feeling,  and  true  insight, 
in  the  essential  matters  of  religious  history;  and  of 
his  superiority,  here,  to  the  best  of  his  rivals,  Baur, 
Strauss,  and  even  M.  Kenan.  "  The  true  evangelical 
bread,"  says  Strauss,  "Christians  have  always  gone 
to  the  three  first  Gospels  for!"  But  what,  then, 
means  this  sentence  of  Luther,  who  stands  as  such  a 
good,  though  favourable,  representative  of  ordinary 
Christianity:  "John's  Gospel  is  the  one  proper  Head- 
Gospel,  and  far  to  be  preferred  to  the  three  others"? 
Again,  M.  Kenan,  often  so  ingenious  as  well  as  elo- 
quent, says  that  the  narrative  and  incidents  in  the 
Fourth  Gospel  are  probably  in  the  main  historical,  the 
discourses  invented.  Eeverse  the  proposition,  and  it 
would  be  more  plausible  !  The  narrative,  so  meagre, 
and  skipping  so  unaccountably  backwards  and  for- 
wards between  Galilee  and  Jerusalem,  might  well  be 
thought,  not  indeed  invented,  but  a  matter  of  infinitely 

critical  insight.  To  discuss  controversially  in  the  text  the  date, 
mode  of  composition,  and  character  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  would 
be  quite  unsuitable  to  the  design  of  the  present  work.  But  I 
have  noticed  objections,  and  amongst  them  this  as  to  my  use 
of  the  Fourth  Gospel,  elsewhere.  See  God  and  tJie  Bible :  A 
Review  of  Objections  to  Literature  and  Dogma. 


154  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

little  care  and  attention  to  the  writer  of  the  Gospel,  a 
mere  slight  framework  in  which  to  set  the  doctrine 
and  discourses  of  Jesus.  The  doctrine  and  discourses 
of  Jesus,  on  the  other  hand,  cannot  in  the  main  be 
the  writer's,  because  in  the  main  they  are  clearly  out 
of  his  reach. 

The  Fourth  Gospel  delights  the  heart  of  M. 
Burnouf.  For  its  writer  shows,  M.  Burnouf  thinks, 
signal  traces  of  the  Aryan  genius,  has  much  to  favour 
the  notion  that  religion  is  a  metaphysical  conception, 
and  was  perhaps  even  capable,  with  time,  of  reaching 
the  grand  truth  that  God  is  a  cosmic  unity !  And 
undoubtedly  the  writer  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  seems 
to  have  come  in  contact,  in  Asia  or  Egypt,  with 
Aryan  metaphysics  whether  from  India  or  Greece; 
and  to  have  had  this  advantage,  whatever  it  amounts 
to,  in  writing  his  Gospel.  But  who,  that  has  eyes  to 
read,  cannot  see  the  difference  between  the  places  in 
his  Gospel,  such  as  the  introduction,  where  the  writer 
speaks  in  his  own  person,  and  the  places  where  Jesus 
himself  speaks  1  The  moment  Jesus  speaks,  the  meta- 
physical apparatus  falls  away,  the  simple  intuition 
takes  its  place;  and  wherever  in  the  discourse  of 
Jesus  the  metaphysical  apparatus  is  intruded,  it  jars 
with  the  context,  breaks  the  unity  of  the  discourse, 
impairs  the  thought,  and  comes  evidently  from  the 
writer,  not  Jesus.  It  may  seem  strange  and  incredible 
to  M.  Burnouf  that  metaphysics  should  not  always 
confer  the  superiority  upon  their  possessor ;  but  such 
is  the  case. 

Who,  again,  cannot  understand  that  the   philo- 


vi.]  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  RECORD.  155 

sophical  acquirements  of  the  author  of  the  Fourth 
Gospel,  like  the  rabbinical  training  and  intellectual 
activity  of  Paul,  though  they  may  have  sometimes 
led  each  of  them  astray,  must  yet  have  given  each  of 
them  a  range  of  thought,  and  an  enlarged  mental 
horizon,  enabling  them  to  perceive  and  follow  ideas 
of  Jesus  which  escaped  the  ken  of  the  more  scantily 
endowed  authors  of  the  synoptical  Gospels'?  Plato 
sophisticates  somewhat  the  genuine  Socrates ;  but  it 
is  very  doubtful  whether  the  culture  and  mental 
energy  of  Plato  did  not  give  him  a  more  adequate 
vision  of  this  true  Socrates  than  Xenophon  had.  It 
proves  nothing  for  the  superiority  of  the  first  three 
Gospels  that  their  authors  are  without  the  logic  of 
Paul  and  the  metaphysics  of  John  (by  this  commonly 
received  name  let  us  for  shortness'  sake  call  the  author 
of  the  Fourth  Gospel),  and  that  Jesus  also  was  with- 
out them.  Jesus  was  without  them  because  he  was 
above  them;  the  authors  of  the  synoptical  Gospels 
because  they  were  (we  say  it  without  any  disrespect) 
below  them.  Therefore,  the  author  of  the  Fourth 
Gospel,  by  the  very  characters  which  make  him 
inferior  to  Jesus,  was  made  superior  to  the  three 
synoptics,  and  better  able  than  they  to  seize  and 
reproduce  the  higher  teaching  of  Jesus. 

Does  it  follow,  then,  that  his  picture  of  Christ's 
teaching  can  have  been  his  own  invention  1  By  no 
means ;  since  Christ's  teaching  is  as  plainly  over  his 
head  (at  that  time  of  day  it  could  not  have  been 
otherwise)  as  it  is  over  theirs.  He  deals  in  miracles 
as  confidingly  as  they  do,  while  unconsciously  indica- 


156  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

ting,  far  more  than  they  do,  that  the  evidence  of 
miracles  is  superseded.  In  those  two  great  chapters, 
the  fifth  and  sixth,  where  Jesus  deals  with  the  topics 
of  life,  death,  and  judgment,  and  with  his  thesis  :  He 
that  eateth  me  shall  live  by  me  / 1  invaluable  and  full  of 
light  as  is  what  is  given,  the  eschatology  and  the 
materialising  conceptions  of  the  writer  do  yet 
evidently  intervene,  as  they  did  with  all  the  disciples, 
as  they  did  with  the  Jews  in  general,  to  hinder  a  per- 
fectly faithful  mirroring  of  the  thought  of  Jesus. 
We  have  already  remarked  how  his  metaphysical 
acquirements  intervene  in  like  manner.  In  the  dis- 
course with  Nicodemus  in  the  third  chapter,  from  the 
thirteenth  verse  to  the  end,  phrases  and  expressions 
of  Jesus  of  the  highest  worth  are  scattered ;  but  they 
are  manifestly  set  in  a  short  theological  lecture  inter- 
posed by  the  writer  himself,  a  lecture  which  is,  as  a 
whole,  without  vital  connection  with  the  genuine 
discourse  of  Jesus,  and  needing  only  to  be  carefully 
studied  side  by  side  with  this  for  its  disparateness  to 
become  apparent. 

But  a  failure  of  right  understanding,  which  will 
be  visible  to  every  one,  occurs  with  this  writer  in  his 
seventh  chapter.  Jesus,  with  a  reference  to  words  of 
the  second  Isaiah,2  says  here  :  "He  that  believeth,  on 
me,  as  the  Scripture  saith,  out  of  his  belly  shall  flow 
rivers  of  living  water."3  The  thought  is  plain;  it 

1  John  vi.  57. 

2  Chap.  Iviii.  10  ;  where  it  is  promised  to  the  righteous  : 
"Thou  shalt  be  like  a  watered  garden,  and  like  a  spring  of 
water,  whose  waters  fail  not."  3  John  vii.  38. 


vi.]  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  RECORD.  157 

belongs  to  the  same  order  as  the  thought  of  the 
saying  :  "If  any  thirst,  let  him  come  unto  me  and 
drink ; "  or  of  the  words  to  the  woman  of  Samaria : 
"  If  thou  hadst  known  the  gift  of  God,  and  who  it  is 
that  talketh  with  thee,  thou  wouldst  have  asked  of 
him  and  he  would  have  given  thee  living  water."  It 
means  that  a  man,  receiving  Jesus,  obtains  a  source 
of  refreshment  for  himself  and  becomes  a  source  of 
refreshment  for  others ;  and  it  means  this  generally, 
without  any  limitation  to  a  special  time.  But  the 
reporter  explains  :  "  Now  this  he  said  concerning  the 
Spirit  (Pneuma)  which  they  who  believed  on  him 
should  receive;  for  Pneuma  was  not  yet,  because 
Jesus  was  not  yet  glorified." l  A  clearer  instance  of  a 
narrow  and  mechanical  interpretation  of  a  great  and 
free  thought  can  hardly  be  imagined ;  and  the  words 
of  Jesus  himself  enable  us  here  to  control  the  inade- 
quacy of  the  interpretation,  and  to  make  it  palpable. 
So  that  the  superior  point  of  view  in  the  Fourth 
Gospel,  the  more  spiritual  treatment  of  things,  the 
insistence  on  internal  evidence,  not  external,  cannot, 
we  say,  be  the  writer's,  for  they  are  above  him ;  and 
while  his  gifts  and  acquirements  are  such  as  to  make 
him  report  them,  they  are  not  such  as  to  enable  him 
to  originate  them.  The  great  evidential  line  of  this 
Gospel :  "  You  are  always  talking  about  God,  and 
about  your  founder  Abraham,  the  father  of  God's 
faithful  people ;  here  is  a  man  who  says  nothing  of 
his  own  head,  who  tells  you  the  truth,  as  he  has 
learnt  it  of  God ;  if  you  were  really  of  God  you  would 
1  John  vii.  39. 


158  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

hear  the  words  of  God  !  if  you  were  really  Abraham's 
children  you  would  follow  the  truth  like  Abraham  ! " 
—this  simple  but  profound  line,  sending  Israel  back 
to  amend  its  conventional,  barren  notions  of  God,  of 
righteousness,  and  of  the  founders  of  its  religion, 
sending  it  to  explore  them  afresh,  to  sound  them 
deeper,  to  gather  from  them  a  new  revelation  and  a 
new  life,  was,  we  say,  at  once  too  simple  and  too  pro- 
found for  the  author  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  to  have 
invented.  Our  endless  gratitude  is  due  to  him,  how- 
ever, for  having  caught  and  preserved  so  much  of  it. 
And  our  business  is  to  keep  hold  of  the  clue  he  has 
thus  given  to  us,  and  to  use  it  as  profitably  as  possible. 


v. 

Truly  then,  some  one  will  exclaim,  we  may  say 
with  the  "Imitation:"  Magna  ars  est  scire  conversari 
cum  Jesu  /  And  so  it  is.  To  extract  from  his  reporters 
the  true  Jesus  entire,  is  even  impossible ;  to  extract 
him  in  considerable  part  is  one  of  the  highest  con- 
ceivable tasks  of  criticism.  And  it  is  vain  to  use  that 
favourite  argument  of  popular  theology  that  man 
could  never  have  been  left  by  Providence  in  difficulty 
and  obscurity  about  a  matter  of  so  much  importance 
to  him.  For  the  cardinal  rule  of  our  present  inquiry 
is  that  rule  of  Newton's :  Hypotheses  non  Jingo ;  and 
this  argument  of  popular  theology  rests  on  the 
eternal  hypothesis,  of  a  magnified  and  non-natural 
man  at  the  head  of  mankind's  and  the  world's  affairs. 
And  a  further  answer  is,  that,  as  to  the  argument 


vi.]        THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  RECORD.       159 

itself,  even  if  we  allowed  the  hypothesis,  yet  the 
course  of  things,  so  far  as  we  can  see,  is  not  so ;  they 
do  not  proceed  in  this  fashion.  Because  a  man  has 
frequently  to  make  sea-passages,  he  is  not  gifted  with 
an  immunity  from  sea-sickness ;  because  a  thing  is  of 
the  highest  interest  and  importance  to  know,  it  is  not, 
therefore,  easy  to  know ;  on  the  contrary,  in  general, 
in  proportion  to  its  magnitude  it  is  difficult,  and 
requires  time. 

But  the  right  commentary  on  the  sentence  of  the 
"  Imitation  "  is  given  by  the  "  Imitation  "  itself  in  the 
sentence  following :  Esto  humilis  et  pacificus,  et  erit 
tecum  Jesus  !  What  men  could  take  at  the  hands  of 
Jesus,  what  they  could  use,  what  could  save  them,  he 
made  as  clear  as  light;  and  Christians  have  never 
been  able,  even  if  they  would,  to  miss  seeing  it.  No, 
never;  but  still  they  have  superadded  to  it  a  vast 
Aberglaube,  an  after  or  extra -belief  of  their  own; 
and  the  Aberglaube  has  pushed  on  one  side,  for  very 
many,  the  saving  doctrine  of  Jesus,  has  hindered 
attention  from  being  riveted  on  this  and  on  its  line 
of  growth  and  working,  has  nearly  effaced  it,  has 
developed  all  sorts  of  faults  contrary  to  it.  This 
Aberglaube  has  sprung  out  of  a  false  criticism  of  the 
literary  records  in  which  the  doctrine  is  conveyed; 
what  is  called  "orthodox  divinity"  is,  in  fact,  an 
immense  literary  misapprehension.  Having  caused 
the  saving  doctrines  enshrined  in  these  records  to  be 
neglected,  and  having  credited  the  records  with  exist- 
ing for  the  sake  of  its  own  Aberglaube,  this  blunder 
now  threatens  to  cause  the  records  themselves  to  be 


160  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

neglected  by  all  those  (and  their  numbers  are  fast 
increasing)  whom  its  own  Aberglaube  fills  with  im- 
patience and  aversion.  Therefore  it  is  needful  to 
show  the  line  of  growth  of  this  Alcrglaube,  and  its 
delusiveness;  to  show  anew,  and  with  more  detail 
than  we  have  admitted  hitherto,  the  line  of  growth 
of  Jesus  Christ's  doctrine,  and  the  far-reaching 
sanctions,  the  inexhaustible  attractiveness,  the  grace 
and  truth,  with  which  he  invested  it.  But  the 
doctrine  itself  is  essentially  simple ;  and  what  is 
difficult, — the  literary  criticism  of  the  documents 
containing  the  doctrine, — is  not  the  doctrine. 

This  literary  criticism,  however,  is  extremely  diffi- 
cult. It  calls  into  play  the  highest  requisites  for  the 
study  of  letters ; — great  and  wide  acquaintance  with 
the  history  of  the  human  mind,  knowledge  of  the 
manner  in  which  men  have  thought,  of  their  way  of 
using  words  and  of  what  they  mean  by  them,  delicacy 
of  perception  and  quick  tact,  and,  besides  all  these,  a 
favourable  moment  and  the  "Zeit-Geist."  And  yet 
every  one  among  us  criticises  the  Bible,  and  thinks  it 
is  of  the  essence  of  the  Bible  that  it  can  be  thus 
criticised  with  success !  And  the  Four  Gospels,  the 
part  of  the  Bible  to  which  this  sort  of  criticism  is 
most  applied  and  most  confidently,  are  just  the  part 
which  for  literary  criticism  is  infinitely  the  hardest, 
however  simple  they  may  look,  and  however  simple 
the  saving  doctrine  they  contain  really  is.  For 
Prophets  and  Epistlers  speak  for  themselves ;  but  in 
the  Four  Gospels  reporters  are  speaking  for  Jesus, 
who  is  far  above  them. 


vi.]       THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  RECORD.       161 

Now,  we  all  know  what  the  literary  criticism  of  the 
mass  of  mankind  is.  To  be  worth  anything,  literary 
and  scientific  criticism  require,  both  of  them,  the 
finest  heads  and  the  most  sure  tact;  and  they  require, 
besides,  that  the  world  and  the  world's  experience 
shall  have  come  some  considerable  way.  But,  ever 
since  this  last  condition  has  been  fulfilled,  the  finest 
heads  for  letters  and  science,  the  surest  tact  for 
these,  have  turned  themselves  in  general  to  other 
departments  of  work  than  criticism  of  the  Bible,  this 
department  being  occupied  already  in  such  force  of 
numbers  and  hands,  if  not  of  heads,  and  there  being 
so  many  annoyances  and  even  dangers  in  freely 
approaching  it.  As  our  Eeformers  were  to  Shak- 
speare  and  Bacon  in  tact  for  letters  and  science,  or  as 
Luther,  even,  was  to  Goethe  in  this  respect,  such 
almost  has  on  the  whole  been,  since  the  Eenascence, 
the  general  proportion  in  rate  of  power  for  criticism 
between  those' who  have  given  themselves  to  secular 
letters  and  science,  and  those  who  have  given  them- 
selves to  interpreting  the  Bible,  and  who,  in  con- 
junction with  the  popular  interpretation  of  it  both 
traditional  and  contemporary,  have  made  what  is 
called  "  orthodox  theology."  It  is  as  if  some  simple 
and  saving  doctrines,  essential  for  men  to  know,  were 
enshrined  in  Shakspeare's  Hamlet  or  in  Newton's 
Principia  (though  the  Gospels  are  really  a  far  more 
complex  and  difficult  object  of  criticism  than  either) ; 
and  a  host  of  second-rate  critics,  and  official  critics, 
and  what  is  called  "  the  popular  mind  "  as  well,  threw 
themselves  upon  Hamlet  and  the  Prindpia,  with  the 

VOL.  V.  M 


162  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

notion  that  they  could  and  should  extract  from  these 
documents,  and  impose  on  us  for  our  belief,  not  only 
the  saving  doctrines  enshrined  there,  but  also  the 
right  literary  and  scientific  criticism  of  the  entire 
documents.  A  pretty  mess  they  would  make  of  it ! 
and  just  this  sort  of  mess  is  our  so-called  orthodox 
theology.  And  its  professors  are  nevertheless  bold, 
overweening,  and  even  abusive,  in  maintaining  their 
criticism  against  all  questioners;  although  really,  if 
one  thinks  seriously  of  it,  it  was  a  kind  of  imperti- 
nence in  such  professors  to  attempt  any  such  criticism 
at  all. 

Happily,  the  faith  that  saves  is  attached  to  the 
saving  doctrines  in  the  Bible,  which  are  very  simple ; 
not  to  its  literary  and  scientific  criticism,  which  is 
very  hard.  And  no  man  is  to  be  called  "  infidel "  for 
his  bad  literary  and  scientific  criticism  of  the  Bible ; 
but  if  he  were,  how  dreadful  would  the  state  of  our 
orthodox  theologians  be  !  They  themselves  freely 
fling  about  this  word  infidel  at  all  those  who  reject 
their  literary  and  scientific  criticism,  which  turns  out 
to  be  quite  false.  It  would  be  but  just  to  mete  to 
them  with  their  own  measure,  and  to  condemn  them 
by  their  own  rule ;  and,  when  they  air  their  unsound 
criticism  in  public,  to  cry  indignantly :  The  Bishop  of 
So-and-So,  the  Dean  of  So-andrSo,  and  other  infidel  lec- 
turers of  the  present  day  /  or :  That  rampant  infidel,  the 
Archdeacon  of  So-and-So,  in  his  recent  letter  on  the  Atha- 
nasian  Creed/  or:  "The  Rock,"  "The  Church  Times," 
and  the  rest  of  the  infidel  press!  or:  The  torrent  of 
infidelity  which  pours  every  Sunday  from  our  pulpits  / 


vi.]       THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  RECORD.       163 

Just  would  this  be,  and  by  no  means  inurbane ;  but 
hardly,  perhaps,  Christian.  Therefore  we  will  not 
permit  ourselves  to  say  it;  but  it  is  only  kind  to 
point  out,  in  passing,  to  these  loud  and  rash  people 
to  what  they  expose  themselves,  at  the  hands  of 
adversaries  less  scrupulous  than  we  are. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

THE  TESTIMONY  OF  JESUS  TO  HIMSELF. 

WE  have  said, — and  it  cannot  be  repeated  too  often, 
— that  what  is  called  orthodox  theology  is,  in  fact, 
an  immense  misunderstanding  of  the  Bible,  due  to 
the  junction  of  a  talent  for  abstruse  reasoning  with 
much  literary  inexperience.  It  cannot  be  repeated 
too  often;  because  our  dogmatic  friends  seem  to 
imagine  that  the  truth  of  their  dogma  is  conceded  on 
all  hands,  and  that  the  only  objection  is  to  the  harsh 
or  over-rigid  way  in  which  it  is  put.  Dr.  Pusey  and 
the  Church  Review  assume  that  what  the  Athanasian 
Creed,  for  instance,  does,  is  "to  take  up  the  admitted 
facts  of  Christian  faith,  and  arrange  them  sentence 
after  sentence ; "  and  then  they  ask  us  why  we 
should  be  so  squeamish  about  "letting  the  Prayer 
Book  contain  once,  at  least,  the  statement  that  Chris- 
tian faith  is  necessary  to  salvation."  Others,  we 
know,  talk  of  the  contest  going  on  between  "  definite 
religion,"  "religion  with  the  sinew  and  bone  of  doc- 
trine," and  "indefinite  religion,"  "nerveless  religion," 
"vague,  negative,  and  cloudy  religion;"  and  Lord 
Salisbury,  as  we  have  seen,  declares  that  "  religion  is 


CHAP,  vii.]     TESTIMONY  OF  JESUS  TO  HIMSELF.        165 

no  more  to  be  severed  from  dogma  than  light  from 
the  sun." 

To  be  sure,  to  make  this  maxim  of  Lord  Salisbury's 
indisputable,  it  ought  to  run :  "  Religion  is  no  more 
to  be  severed  from  the  true  doctrine  of  religion  than 
light  from  the  sun."  And  dogma  and  the  true  doctrine 
of  religion  are  not  exactly  synonyms.  Dogma  means, 
not  necessarily  a  true  doctrine,  but  merely  a  doctrine 
or  system  of  doctrine  determined,  decreed,  received.  Lord 
Salisbury,  however,  takes  it  as  in  this  case  another 
word  for  truth,  and  so  do  the  other  speakers.  And 
they  accordingly  represent  their  opponents  as  either 
secret  enemies  of  the  truth  of  religion,  men  who  are, 
as  the  Rock  says  in  a  Biblical  figure  addressed  to  the 
Dean  of  Westminster,  "  the  degenerate  plant  of  a 
strange  vine  bringing  forth  the  grapes  of  Sodom  and 
the  clusters  of  Gomorrah;"  or,  at  best,  as  amiable, 
soft-headed  people,  afraid  of  clear  thought  and  plain 
speech,  and  requiring  with  their  light  a  very  unneces- 
sary dose  of  sweetness. 

We,  however,  try  to  keep  our  love  of  sweetness 
within  reasonable  bounds ;  and  the  Rock  will  hardly 
call  us  a  Gomorrah  vine,  when  we  agree  to  say  heartily 
after  it,  as  we  do,  that  "  Christian  faith  is  necessary 
to  salvation."  But  what  is  Christian  faith?  Is  it 
"  the  admitted  facts  taken  up  and  arranged,  sentence 
after  sentence,  in  the  Athanasian  Creed  ?"  Are  these 
facts  admitted  ? — the  whole  question  is  here.  So  far 
from  these  facts  being  admitted,  or  from  the  enumera- 
tion of  them  being  the  enumeration  of  the  facts  of  the 
Christian  faith,  we  say  that  they  are  deductions  from 


166  LITEKATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

the  Bible  of  matters  which  are  not  the  real  matters 
of  Christian  faith  at  all;  and  that,  moreover,  they 
are  false  deductions  from  the  Bible,  blunders  arising 
from  a  want  of  skill  and  experience  in  dealing  with  a 
very  complex  literary  problem. 

Therefore  we  can  honestly  tell  our  dogmatic  friends 
that  we  agree  with  them  in  disliking  an  indefinite 
religion,  in  preferring  a  definite  one.  Our  quarrel 
with  them  is,  not  that  they  define  religion,  but  that 
they  define  it  so  abominably.  And  to  the  eloquent 
and  impetuous  Chancellor  of  Oxford,  who  cannot 
away  with  a  hazy  amiability  in  religious  matters,  and 
brandishes  before  us  his  dogma,  not  vague,  he  says, 
but  precise : — "  Precise  enough,"  we  answer,  "  precisely 
wrong!"  And  having  thus,  we  hope,  put  ourselves 
right  with  our  adversaries  as  to  the  real  question 
between  us  and  them,  we  will  proceed  with  our 
endeavour  to  free  the  Bible, — by  showing  that  it  is 
not  science  but  literature,  by  following  it  continuously 
and  by  interpreting  it  naturally, — to  free  the  Bible 
from  the  serious  dangers  with  which  their  advocacy 
threatens  it.  Because,  when  the  bishops  talk  of 
"doing  something  for  the  Godhead  of  the  Eternal 
Son,"  they  are  doing  nothing,  we  say,  for  the  Bible, 
they  are  endangering  it.  For  their  notions  about 
the  Godhead  of  the  Eternal  Son,  and  what  it  is, 
cannot  possibly  stand;  and  yet  these  notions  they 
have  drawn,  they  tell  us,  from  the  Bible,  they  impute 
thdm  to  the  Bible.  But  they  have  drawn  them 
wrongly,  and  the  Bible  is  to  be  made  answerable  for 
no  such  doctrine.  And  we  have  now  come  to  that 


\u.  I     TESTIMONY  OF  JESUS  TO  HIMSELF.     1G7 

point  where  we  may  see,  clearer  than  we  were  in  a 
position  to  see  before,  what  is  rightly  to  be  drawn 
from  the  Bible  on  this  matter,  and  what  the  doctrine 
of  Jesus  himself  about  his  own  Godhead  really  is. 


II. 

Following  the  Bible  continuously  and  interpreting 
it  naturally,  we  saw  the  people  of  "  the  Eternal  that 
loveth  righteousness,"  and  that  "blesseth  the  man 
that  putteth  his  trust  in  Him," l  we  saw  Israel — con- 
founded and  perplexed  by  the  misfortunes  of  God's 
people  and  the  success  of  the  unrighteous  world — 
construct  a  vast  Aberglaube,  an  after  or  extra-belief, 
according  to  which  there  should  come  about,  in  no 
distant  future,  a  grand  and  wonderful  change.  God 
should  send  his  Messiah,  judge  the  world,  punish  the 
wicked,  and  restore  the  kingdom  to  Israel.  For 
Israel's  original  revelation  and  intuition  had  been: 
The  Eternal  loveth  righteousness  ;  to  him  that  ordereth  his 
conversation  right  shall  be  shown  the  salvation  of  God.2 
And  the  natural  corollary  from  this  was :  As  the 
whirlwind  passeth,  so  is  the  wicked  no  more;  but  the 
righteous  is  an  everlasting  foundation  ^ 

Both  the  revelation  and  the  corollary  from  it  were 
true ;  but  the  virtue  of  both,  for  Israel,  turned  upon 
knowing  what  righteousness  and  righteous  meant.  And 
this  indispensable  intuition  Israel  is  always  repre- 
sented as  having  once  had,  and  with  time  in  great 

1  Psalm  xi.  7  ;  xxxiv.  8.  2  Psalm  xi.  7  ;  1.  23. 

3  Proverbs  x.  25. 


168  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

measure  lost.  "  Stand  ye  in  the  ways  and  see,"  says 
Jeremiah,  "and  ask  for  the  old  paths,  where  is  the  good 
way,  and  walk  therein,  and  ye  shall  find  rest  for  your 
souls.1  The  prophets  may  be  seen  trying  to  reawaken 
in  Israel  this  intuition,  by  inculcating  inwardness, 
humbleness,  sincerity.  But  the  mass  of  people 
naturally  inclined  to  place  righteousness  rather  in 
something  mechanically  to  be  given  or  done, — in 
being  endowed  with  the  character  of  God's  chosen 
people,  or  in  punctually  observing  a  law  full  of  minute 
observances.  And  the  promises  to  righteousness 
they  in  like  manner  construed  as  promises  of  things 
material:  a  mighty  Jewish  kingdom,  God's  people 
"shepherding  the  nations  with  a  rod  of  iron,"2  the 
heathen  licking  the  dust. 

This  material  conception  of  the  promises  to  right- 
eousness fell  in  with  the  mechanical  conception  of 
righteousness  itself,  and  each  heightened  the  hurtful- 
ness  of  the  other.  Between  them  both,  a  type  of  soul 
more  and  more  hard,  impervious,  and  impracticable, 
was  formed  in  the  Jewish  people ;  and  the  intuition, 
in  which  their  greatness  began,  died  out  more  and 
more.  There  still  remained  of  it  so  much  as  this : 
that  of  all  the  nations  of  the  world  they  were  the  only 
one  that  felt  the  all-importance  of  righteousness,  and 
the  eternity  of  the  promises  made  to  it.  But  what 
righteousness  really  was  they  knew  not;  and  their 
situation,  when  Jesus  Christ  came,  is  admirably 
summed  up  in  these  two  verses  of  prophecy,  which 
every  one  who  wishes  for  a  clear  sense  of  the  Jews' 

1  Jeremiah  vi.  16.  2  Kev.  xix.  15  and  Psalm  ii.  9. 


viz.]  TESTIMONY  OF  JESUS  TO  HIMSELF.  169 

relations  with  Jesus  would  do  well  to  write  as  a 
reminder  on  the  blank  page  of  his  Bible  between  the 
Old  Testament  and  the  New  : — 

"  Forasmuch  as  this  people  draw  near  me  with  their 
mouth,  and  with  their  lips  do  honour  me,  but  have  removed 
tJieir  heart  from  me,  and  their  fear  towards  me  is  taught 
by  the  precept  of  men  ; 

"Therefore,  behold,  I  will  proceed  to  do  a  marvellous 
work  among  this  people,  even  a  marvellous  work  and  a 
wonder  ;  for  tJie  wisdom  of  the  wise  man  shall  perish,  and 
the  understanding  of  their  prudent  men  shall  be  hid"1 

Meanwhile,  the  Jews  were  full  of  their  Aberglaube, 
their  added  or  extra-belief  in  a  Messianic  advent,  a 
great  judgment,  a  world-wide  reign  of  the  saints ;  and 
it  is  well  to  have  distinctly  before  us  the  main  texts 
which  they  had  gathered  from  the  Old  Testament  in 
support  of  this  belief,  and  which  were  in  everybody's 
mind  and  mouth.  They  are  all  indicated  to  us  by 
the  New  Testament.  Moses  had  said  :  "  The  Eternal 
thy  God  will  raise  up  unto  thee  a  Prophet  from  the 
midst  of  thee,  of  thy  brethren,  like  unto  me ;  unto 
him  shall  ye  hearken."  2  In  the  Psalms  it  was  written : 
"The  Eternal  hath  sworn  a  faithful  oath  unto  David : 
Of  the  fruit  of  thy  body  will  I  set  upon  thy  seat ;  thy  seed 
will  I  stablish  for  ever,  and  set  up  thy  throne  from  one 
generation  to  another"  3  Isaiah  had  said  :  "  There  shall 
come  forth  a  Eod  out  of  the  stem  of  Jesse  and  a 
Branch  shall  grow  out  of  his  roots ;  and  the  Spirit  of 
the  Eternal  shall  rest  upon  him,  and  he  shall  smite 

1  Isaiah  xxix.  13,  14.  2  Deut.  xviii.  15. 

8  Psalm  cxxxii.  11  ;  Ixxxix.  4. 


170  LITERATUKE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

the  earth  with  the  breath  of  his  mouth,  and  with  the 
breath  of  his  lips  shall  he  slay  the  wicked." 1  Finally, 
Malachi,  the  last  prophet,  had  announced  from  God  : 
"  Behold,  I  will  send  you  Elijah  the  prophet  before  the 
coming  of  the  great  and  dreadful  day  of  the  Eternal."2 
These  may  stand,  perhaps,  as  four  fundamental 
texts  forming  the  ground  for  popular  Jewish  Aber- 
glaube  as  it  developed  itself ;  and  it  will  be  seen  of 
what  large  and  loose  construction  they  admit.  But 
the  ground-plan  thus  given  was  filled  out  from  later 
and  inferior  scriptures,  full  of  the  spirit  of  the  time, 
grandiose,  but  turbid  and  phantasmagoric,  such  as 
the  Book  of  Enoch  and  the  Book  of  Daniel.  The 
Book  of  Daniel  is  in  our  Bibles;  we  can  all  verify 
there  the  elements  which  constituted,  when  Jesus 
Christ  came,  the  popular  religious  belief  and  expecta- 
tion of  the  Jews.  It  may  be  hoped  that  we  ourselves, 
most  of  us,  read  other  parts  of  the  Bible  far  more  than 
the  Book  of  Daniel ;  but  we  know  how,  in  general, 
those  who  use  the  Bible  most  unintelligently  have  a 
peculiar  fondness  for  the  apocalyptic  and  phantasma- 
goric parts  of  it.  The  Book  of  Daniel  gave  form  and 
body  to  the  Prophet  of  Moses,  the  seed  of  David  of  the 
Psalms,  the  great  and  dreadful  day  of  Malachi;  it 
enabled  the  popular  imagination  to  see  and  figure 
them.  "  A  time  of  trouble  such  as  never  was  since 
there  was  a  nation  to  that  time !  The  Ancient  of 
days  did  sit,  whose  garment  was  white  as  snow  and 
the  hair  of  his  head  like  the  pure  wool ;  his  throne 
was  like  the  fiery  flame ;  the  judgment  was  set  and 
1  Isaiah  xi.  1,  2,  4.  2  Malachi  vi.  5. 


vn.]  TESTIMONY  OF  JESUS  TO  HIMSELF.  171 

the  books  were  opened.  And  behold,  one  like  the 
Son  of  Man  came  with  the  clouds  of  heaven,  and 
came  to  the  Ancient  of  days,  and  there  was  given  him 
dominion  and  glory,  that  all  people,  nations,  and 
languages  should  serve  him ;  his  dominion  is  an  ever- 
lasting dominion  which  shall  not  pass  away.  And 
judgment  was  given  to  the  saints  of  the  Most  High, 
and  the  time  came  that  the  saints  possessed  the  king- 
dom. At  that  time  the  people  of  God  shall  be 
delivered,  every  one  that  shall  be  found  written  in  the 
book;  and  many  of  them  that  sleep  in  dust  shall 
awake,  some  to  everlasting  life,  and  some  to  shame 
and  everlasting  contempt."1 

Other  figures  which  laid  hold  on  men's  imagina- 
tions the  Book  of  Enoch  supplied.  It  told  how,  in 
the  great  visitation :  "  They  shall  rise  up  to  destroy 
one  another,  neither  shall  a  man  acknowledge  his 
friend  and  his  brother,  nor  the  son  his  father  and 
his  mother."  It  told  how:  "Ye  shall  enter  into  the 
holes  of  the  earth  and  into  the  cliffs  of  the  rocks ; " 
and  how,  finally,  the  proud  rulers  of  the  world  "shall 
see  the  Son  of  Man  sitting  on  the  throne  of  his 
glory."  The  Book  of  Enoch  described  this  Son  of 
Man,  also,  as  "  The  Son  of  Man,  living  with  the  Lord 
of  Spirits;"  "The  Elect  One,  whom  the  Lord  of 
Spirits  hath  gifted  and  glorified."  Both  books  gave 
him  the  name  of  "Son  of  God"  and  of  "Messiah." 

It  was  of  all  this  that  the  heart  of  the  Jews  was 
full  when  Jesus  Christ  came;  it  was  on  this  that 
their  thoughts  fed  and  their  hopes  brooded.  The 

1  Daniel  xii.  1  ;  vii.  9,  13,  14,  22  ;  xii.  1,  2. 


172  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

old  words,  God,  the  Eternal,  the  Father,  the  Eedeemer, 
were  perpetually  in  their  mouths;  but  in  this  con- 
nection. The  goal  of  their  lives  was  still,  as  of  old, 
"  the  salvation  of  God ; "  but  this  was  what  they 
understood  the  salvation  of  God  to  be.  They  had 
lost  the  intuition,  and  they  had  thrown  themselves, 
heart  and  soul,  upon  a  great  extra-belief,  or  Alerglaube. 


III. 

Now,  if  we  describe  the  work  of  Jesus  Christ  by 
a  short  expression  which  may  give  the  clearest  view 
of  it,  we  shall  describe  it  thus  : — that  he  came  to 
restore  the  intuition.  He  came,  it  is  true,  to  save,  and 
to  give  eternal  life ;  but  the  way  in  which  he  did  this 
was  by  restoring  the  intuition. 

This  we  have  already  touched  upon  in  our  third 
chapter.  We  there  passed  in  brief  review  the  teaching 
of  Jesus.  But  there  the  objection  met  us,  that  what 
attested  Jesus  Christ  was  miracles,  and  the  preter- 
natural fulfilment  in  him  of  certain  detailed  predic- 
tions made  about  him  long  before ;  and  that  such  is 
the  teaching  of  Jesus  Christ  himself  and  of  the  Bible. 
We  had  to  pause  and  deal  with  this  objection.  And 
now,  as  it  disperses,  we  come  in  full  view  of  our  old 
point  again: — that  what  did  attest  Christ  was  his 
restoration  of  the  intuition.  Jesus  Christ  found  Israel 
all  astray,  with  an  endless  talk  about  God,  the  law, 
righteousness,  the  kingdom,  everlasting  life, — and  no 
real  hold  upon  any  one  of  them.  Israel's  old,  sure 
proof  of  being  in  the  right  way, — the  sanction  of  joy 


vir.]  TESTIMONY  OF  JESUS  TO  HIMSELF.  173 

and  peace, — was  plainly  wanting ;  and  this  was  a  test 
which  anybody  could  at  once  apply.  "0  Eternal, 
blessed  is  the  man  that  putteth  his  trust  in  thee,"1 
was  a  corner-stone  of  Israel's  religion.  Now,  the 
Jewish  people,  however  they  might  talk  about  putting 
their  trust  in  the  Eternal,  were  evidently,  as  they 
stood  there  before  Jesus,  not  blessed  at  all ;  and  they 
knew  it  themselves  as  well  as  he  did.  "  Great  peace 
have  they  who  love  thy  law," 2  was  another  corner- 
stone. But  the  Jewish  people  had  at  that  time  in 
its  soul  as  little  peace  as  it  had  joy  and  blessedness ; 
it  was  seething  with  inward  unrest,  irritation,  and 
trouble.  Yet  the  way  of  the  Eternal  was  most 
indubitably  a  way  of  peace  and  joy;  so,  if  Israel 
felt  no  peace  and  no  joy,  Israel  could  not  be  walking 
in  the  way  of  the  Eternal.  Here  we  have  the  firm 
unchanging  ground  on  which  the  operations  of  Jesus 
both  began,  and  always  proceeded. 

And  it  is  to  be  observed  that  Jesus  by  no  means 
gave  a  new,  more  precise,  scientific  definition  of  God, 
but  took  up  this  term  just  as  Israel  used  it,  to  stand 
for  the  Eternal  that  loveth  righteousness.  If  therefore 
this  term  was,  in  Israel's  use  of  it,  not  a  term  of 
science,  but,  as  we  say,  a  term  of  common  speech,  of 
poetry  and  eloquence,  throivn  out  at  a  vast  object  of 
consciousness  not  fully  covered  by  it,  so  it  was  in 
Jesus  Christ's  use  of  it  also.  And  if  the  substratum 
of  real  affirmation  in  the  term  was,  with  Israel,  not 
the  affirmation  of  "  a  great  Personal  First  Cause,  the 
moral  and  intelligent  Governor  of  the  universe,"  but 
1  Ps.  Ixxxiv.  13.  2  Ps.  cxix.  165. 


174  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAF. 

the  affirmation  of  "an  enduring  Power,  not  ourselves, 
that  makes  for  righteousness,"  so  it  remained  with 
Jesus  Christ  likewise.  He  set  going  a  great  process 
of  searching  and  sifting ;  but  this  process  had  for  its 
direct  object  the  idea  of  righteousness,  and  only  touched 
the  idea  of  God  through  this,  and  not  independently  of 
this  and  immediately.  If  the  idea  of  righteousness  was 
changed,  this  implied,  undoubtedly,  a  corresponding 
change  in  the  idea  of  the  Power  that  makes  for  right- 
eousness; but  in  this  manner  only,  and  to  this  extent, 
does  the  teaching  of  Jesus  re-define  the  idea  of  God. 

But  search  and  sift  and  renew  the  idea  of  righteous- 
ness Jesus  did.  And  though  the  work  of  Jesus,  like 
the  name  of  God,  calls  up  in  the  believer  a  multitude 
of  emotions  and  associations  far  more  than  any  brief 
definition  can  cover,  yet,  remembering  Jeremy  Taylor's 
advice  to  avoid  exhortations  to  get  Christ,  to  be  in  Christ, 
and  to  seek  some  more  distinct  and  practical  way  of 
speaking  of  him,  we  shall  not  do  ill,  perhaps,  if  we 
summarise  to  our  own  minds  his  work  by  saying,  that 
he  restored  the  intuition  of  God  through  transforming 
the  idea  of  righteousness ;  and  that,  to  do  this,  he 
brought  a  method,  and  he  brought  a  secret.  And  of 
those  two  great  words  which  fill  such  a  place  in  his 
gospel,  repentance  and  peace, — as  we  see  that  his 
Apostles,  when  they  preached  his  gospel,  preached 
"Repentance  unto  life"1  and  "Peace  through  Jesus 
Christ," 2 — of  these  two  great  words,  one,  repentance, 
attaches  itself,  we  shall  find,  to  his  method,  and  the 
other,  peace,  to  his  secret. 

1  Acts  xi.  18.  2  Acts  x.  36. 


vii.]  TESTIMONY  OF  JESUS  TO  HIMSELF.  175 

There  was  no  question  between  Jesus  Christ  and 
the  Jews  as  to  the  object  to  aim  at.  "  If  thou  wouldst 
enter  into  life,  keep  the  commandments,"  said  Jesus.1 
And  Israel,  too,  on  his  part,  said :  "He  that  keepeth 
the  commandments  keepeth  his  own  soul."2  But  what 
commandments  1  The  commandments  of  God ;  about 
this,  too,  there  was  no  question.  But:  "Leaving 
the  commandment  of  God,  ye  hold  the  tradition  of 
men;  ye  make  the  commandment  of  God  of  none 
effect  by  your  tradition"  said  Jesus.3  Therefore  the 
commandments  which  Israel  followed  were  not  those 
commandments  of  God  by  which  a  man  keeps  his 
own  soul,  enters  into  life.  And  the  practical  proof 
of  this  was,  that  Israel  stood  before  the  eyes  of  the 
world  manifestly  neither  blessed  nor  at  peace ;  yet 
these  characters  of  bliss  and  peace  the  following  of 
the  real  commandments  of  God  was  confessed  to  give. 
So  a  rule,  or  method,  was  wanted,  by  which  to  deter- 
mine on  what  the  keeping  of  the  real  commandments 
of  God  depended. 

{"And  Jesus  gave  one :  "  The  things  that  come  from 
within  a  man's  heart,  they  it  is  which  defile  him  ty"  4 

We  have  seen  what  an  immense  matter  conduct 
is; — that  it  is  three-fourths  of  life.  We  have  seen 
how  plain  and  simple  a  matter  it  is,  so  far  as  know- 
ledge is  concerned.  We  have  seen  how,  moreover, 
philosophers  are  for  referring  all  conduct  to  one  or 
other  of  man's  two  elementary  instincts, — the  instinct 
of  self-preservation  and  the  reproductive  instinct.  It 

1  Matt.  xix.  17.  2  Prov.  xix.  16. 

?-  Mark  vii.  9,  13.  *  Matt  xv    18  .  Mark  yii    2Q,  21. 


176  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

is  the  suggestions  of  one  or  other  of  these  instincts, 
philosophers  say,  which  call  forth  all  cases  in  which 
there  is  scope  for  exercising  morality,  or  conduct. 
And  this  does,  we  saw,  cover  the  facts  well  enough. 
For  we  can  run  up  nearly  all  faults  of  conduct  into 
two  classes — faults  of  temper  and  faults  of  sensuality; 
to  be  referred,  all  of  them,  to  one  or  other  of  these 
two  instincts.  Now,  Jesus  not  only  says  that  things 
coming  from  within  a  man's  heart  defile  him,  he 
adds  expressly  what  these  things  that,  coming  from 
within  a  man,  defile  him,  are.  And  what  he  enume- 
rates are  the  following :  "  Evil  thoughts,  adulteries, 
fornications,  murders,  stealings,  greeds,  viciousnesses, 
fraud,  dissoluteness,  envy,  evil-speaking,  pride,  folly."1 
These  fall  into  two  groups :  one,  of  faults  of  self- 
assertion,  graspingness,  and  violence,  all  of  which  we 
may  call  faults  of  temper ;  and  the  other,  of  faults  of 
sensuality.  And  the  two  groups,  between  them,  do 
for  practical  purposes  cover  all  the  range  of  faults 
proceeding  from  these  two  sources,  and  therefore  all 
the  range  of  conduct.  So  the  motions  or  impulses  to 
faults  of  conduct  were  what  Jesus  said  the  real  com- 
mandments of  God  are  concerned  with.  And  it  was 
plain  what  such  faults  are;  but,  to  make  assurance 
more  sure,  he  went  farther  and  said  what  they  are. 
But  no  outward  observances  were  conduct,  were  that 
keeping  of  the  commandments  of  God  which  was  the 
keeping  of  a  man's  own  soul  and  made  him  enter  into 
life.  To  have  the  heart  and  thoughts  in  order  as  to 
certain  matters,  was  conduct. 

1  Mark  vii.  21,  22. 


TESTIMONY  OF  JESUS  TO  HIMSELF.      177 

This  was  the  "  method  "  of  Jesus :  the  setting  up 
a  great  unceasing  inward  movement  of  attention  and 
verification  in  matters  which  are  three -fourths  of 
human  life,  where  to  see  true  and  to  verify  is  not  diffi- 
cult, the  difficult  thing  is  to  care  and  to  attend.  And 
the  inducement  to  attend  was  because  joy  and  peace, 
missed  on  every  other  line,  were  to  be  reached  on  this. 

"Keep  judgment  and  do  righteousness  I"1  had  not 
been  guidance  enough.  The  Jews  found  themselves 
taking  "  meats  and  drinks  and  divers  washings "  for 
judgment ;  taking  for  righteousness  "  gifts  and  sacri- 
fices which  cannot  perfect  the  worshipper  as  to  his 
conscience"2  (here  is  the  word  of  Jesus!);  tithing 
mint,  anise  and  cummin  ;3  saying  to  a  father  or 
mother,  when  filial  succour  was  claimed,  It  is  Corlanf* 
— evil  disposed,  and  not  at  all  blessed.  But:  "As 
to  all  wherein  what  men  commonly  call  conduct  is 
exercised,  —  eating,  drinking,  ease,  pleasure,  money, 
the  intercourse  of  the  sexes,  the  giving  full  swing  to 
one's  tempers  and  instincts, — as  to  all  this,  watch 
attentively  what  passes  within  you,  that  you  may 
obey  the  voice  of  conscience  !  so  you  will  keep  God's 
commandment  and  be  blessed;" — this  is  the  new  and 
much  more  exact  guidance.  "  The  things  that  come 
from  icithin  a  man's  heart,  they  defile  him  !  cleanse  the 
inside  of  the  cup !  beware  of  the  leaven  of  the  Pharisees, 
which  is  insincerity!  judge  not  after  the  appearance, 
but  judge  righteous  judgment  !"5 — this,  we  say,  is  the 

1  Isaiah  Ivi.  1.  2  Hebrews  ix.  9,  10. 

3  Matthew  xxiii.  23.  4  Mark  vii.  11. 

5  Matthew  xv.  18;  xxiii.  16;  Luke  xii.  1;  John  vii.  24. 
VOL.  V.  N 


178  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

"method"  of  Jesus.  To  it  belongs  his  use  of  that 
important  word  which  in  the  Greek  is  "  metanoia." 
We  translate  it  repentance,  a  groaning  and  lamenting 
over  one's  sins;  and  we  translate  it  wrong.  Of 
"metanoia,"  according  to  the  meaning  of  Jesus,  the 
"bewailing  one's  sins  was  a  small  part.  The  main 
part  was  something  far  more  active  and  fruitful— 
the  setting  up  an  immense  new  inward  movement  for 
obtaining  one's  rule  of  life.  And  "  metanoia,"  accord- 
ingly, is :  A  change  of  the  inner  man. 

Mention  and  recommendation  of  this  inwardness 
there  often  was,  we  know,  in  prophet  or  psalmist. 
But  to  make  mention  of  it  was  one  thing,  to  erect 
it  into  a  positive  method  was  another.  Christianity 
has  made  it  so  familiar,  that  to  give  any  freshness  to 
one's  words  about  it  is  now  not  easy ;  but  to  its  first 
recipients  it  was  abundantly  fresh  and  novel.  It  was 
the  introduction,  in  morals  and  religion,  of  the  famous 
know  thyself  of  the  Greeks ;  and  this  among  a  people 
deeply  serious,  but  also  wedded  to  moral  and  religious 
routine,  and  singularly  devoid  of  flexibility  and  play 
of  mind.  For  them  it  was  a  revolution.  Of  course 
the  hard  thing  is,  not  to  say,  "  Cleanse  the  inside  of 
the  cup,"  but  to  make  people  do  it.  In  morals  and 
religion,  the  man  who  is  "founded  upon  rock"  is 
always,  as  Jesus  said,  the  man  who  does,  never  the 
man  who  only  hears.1  To  say,  "Look  within,"  was 
therefore  not  everything;  yet  we  none  of  us,  probably, 
enough  feel  the  power  which  at  first  resided  in  the 
mere  saying  of  it  as  Jesus  said  it.  And  this  is 
1  Matthew  vii.  24. 


VIL]  TESTIMONY  OF  JESUS  TO  HIMSELF.  179 

because  his  words  have  become  so  trite  to  us,  that 
we  fail  to  see  how  powerfully  they  were  all  adapted 
to  call  forth  the  new  habit  of  inwardness ;  and  if  we 
want  to  see  this,  we  must  for  a  time  either  re-translate 
his  words  for  ourselves,  or  paraphrase  them.  And  not 
only  the  words  he  employed,  but  also  the  words  he 
occasioned ;  the  words  which  the  effect  produced  by 
him  made  men  use  about  him.  Just  as  it  is  well  to 
substitute  Eternal  for  Lord,  and  the  good  news  for  the 
gospel,  so  we  must  put  new  words  in  the  place  of  the 
now  hackneyed  repentance,  truth,  grace,  spirit,  if  we  wish 
at  all  to  know  how  these  words  worked  originally. 
"  Metanoia,"  we  have  seen,  is  a  change  of  the  inner 
man.  Repentance  unto  life  was  a  life-giving  change  of 
the  inner  man.  "Aletheia"  is  not  so  well  rendered 
truth,  which  is  often  speculative  only,  as  it  is  reality. 
"Charis"  is  the  boon  of  happiness.1  Instead,  then, 
of :  "  Grace  and  truth  came  through  Jesus  Christ," 
let  us  say:  "Happiness  and  reality  came  through 
Jesus  Christ."  Instead  of:  "To  know  the  grace  of 
God  in  truth,"  let  us  say :  "  To  know  the  happiness  of 
God  in  reality."  Even  though  the  new  rendering  be 
not  so  literally  correct  as  the  old,  not  permanently  to 
be  adopted,  it  will  prove  of  use  to  us  for  a  while  to 
show  us  how  the  words  worked. 

Above  all  is  this  true  in  regard  to  the  word  spirit, 
made  so  mechanical  by  popular  religion,  that  it  has 
come  to  mean  a  person  without  a  body,  which  is  the 

1  Professor  F.  Newman  has  truly  remarked  that  this  rendering 
is  not  closely  accurate.  But  see  what  I  have  said  in  the  next 
sentence  but  one.  The  most  literal  rendering  of  a  word  such 
as  charts  is  not,  in  the  present  case,  what  we  want. 


180  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

child's  definition  of  a  ghost.  This  word,  specially  de- 
signed by  Jesus  to  serve  in  restoring  the  intuition,  and 
in  bringing  Israel's  religion  face  to  face  with  Israel's 
inward  consciousness,  is  rather  influence.  "  Except  a 
man  be  born  of  cleansing  and  of  a  new  influence,  he 
cannot  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  God.1  Instead  of 
proclaiming  what  the  Bishop  of  Gloucester  calls  "the 
blessed  truth  that  the  God  of  the  universe  is  a 
PERSON,"  Jesus  uttered  a  warning  for  all  time  against 
this  unprofitable  jargon,  when  he  said :  "  God  is  an 
influence,  and  those  who  would  serve  him  must  serve 
him  not  by  any  form  of  words  or  rites,  but  by  inward 
motion  and  in  reality  ! "  No  rendering  can  too 
strongly  bring  out  the  original  bent  to  inwardness 
and  intuition  in  language  of  this  kind,  which  has  now 
become  almost  formal  to  us. 

Just  the  same  bent  appears  in  Jesus  taking,  as 
the  rule  for  a  man's  action  in  regard  to  another's 
conduct,  simply  and  solely  the  effect  on  the  actor's 
own  character.  This  is  what  is  so  striking  in  the 
story  of  the  woman  taken  in  adultery.  "Let  him  that 
is  without  fault  cast  the  fast  stone !  and  they  were  all 
convicted  by  their  conscience."  And  who  is  without 
fault,  and  where  is  the  judge  whom  the  conviction 
of  conscience  might  not  thus  paralyse  1  Punishment, 
then,  is  impossible;  and,  with  punishment,  govern- 
ment and  society !  But  punishment,  government,  and 
society,  are  all  of  them  after-inventions ;  creations  of 
assemblages  of  men,  and  not  matter  of  the  individual's 
intuition.  Jesus  regarded  simply  what  was  primary, 

1  John  iii.  5. 


vii.]  TESTIMONY  OF  JESUS  TO  HIMSELF.  181 

— the  individual  and  the  intuition.  And  in  truth,  if 
the  individual  and  the  intuition  are  once  reached,  the 
after-inventions  may  be  left  to  take  care  of  themselves. 
And  if  conscience  ever  became  enough  of  a  power, 
there  would  be  no  offenders  to  punish.  This  is  the 
true  line  of  religion ;  it  was  the  line  of  Jesus.  To 
work  the  renovation  needed,  he  concentrated  his 
efforts  upon  a  method  of  inwardness,  of  taking  counsel 
of  conscience. 

IV. 

But  for  this  world  of  busy  inward  movement 
created  by  the  metlwd  of  Jesus,  a  rule  of  action  was 
wanted ;  and  this  rule  was  found  in  his  secret.  It 
was  this  of  which  the  Apostle  Paul  afterwards  pos- 
sessed himself  with  such  energy,  and  called  it  "the 
word  of  the  cross,"1  or,  necrosis,  "dying."  The  rule 
of  action  St.  Paul  gave  was  :  "  Always  bearing  about 
in  the  body  the  dying  of  Jesus,  that  the  life  also  of 
Jesus  may  be  made  manifest  in  our  body  ! " 2  In  the 
popular  theurgy,  these  words  are  commonly  referred  to 
what  is  called  "pleading  the  blood  of  the  covenant," 
— relying  on  the  death  and  merits  of  Christ,  in  pur- 
suance of  the  contract  originally  passed  in  the  Council 
of  the  Trinity,  to  satisfy  God's  wrath  against  sinners 
and  to  redeem  us.  But  they  do  really  refer  to  words 
of  Jesus,  often  and  often  repeated,  and  of  which  the 
following  may  very  well  stand  as  pre-eminently 
representative :  "  He  that  loveth  his  life  shall  lose  it, 

1  '0  \6yos  6  TOU  ffTavpou. — 1  Cor.  i.  18. 
2  2  Cor.  iv.  10  (according  to  the  Vatican  manuscript). 


182  LITEEATUKE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

and  he  that  hateth  his  life  in  this  ivorld  shall  keep  it  unto 
life  eternal.  WTiosoever  will  come  after  me,  let  him  renounce 
himself,  and  take  up  his  cross  daily,  and  follow  me"1 

These  words,  or  words  like  them,  were  repeated 
again  and  again,  so  that  no  reporter  could  miss  them. 
No  reporter  did  miss  them.  We  find  them,  as  we 
find  the  "method"  of  conscience,  in  all  the  four 
Gospels.  Perhaps  there  is  no  other  maxim  of  Jesus 
which  has  such  a  combined  stress  of  evidence  for  it, 
and  may  be  taken  as  so  eminently  his.  And  no 
wonder.  For  the  maxim  contains  his  secret,  the  secret 
by  which,  emphatically,  his  gospel  "  brought  life  and 
immortality  to  light."2  Christ's  "method"  directed 
the  disciple's  eye  inward,  and  set  his  consciousness  to 
work ;  and  the  first  thing  his  consciousness  told  him 
was,  that  he  had  two  selves  pulling  him  different 
ways.  Till  we  attend,  till  the  method  is  set  at  work, 
it  seems  as  if  "the  wishes  of  the  flesh  and  of  the 
current  thoughts  "  3  were  to  be  followed  as  a  matter 
of  course ;  as  if  an  impulse  to  do  a  thing  must  mean 
that  we  should  do  it.  But  when  we  attend,  we  find 
that  an  impulse  to  do  a  thing  is  really  in  itself  no 
reason  at  all  why  we  should  do  it ;  because  impulses 
proceed  from  two  sources,  quite  different,  and  of 
quite  different  degrees  of  authority.  St.  Paul  contrasts 
them  as  the  inward  man,  and  the  man  in  our  mem- 
bers; the  mind  of  the  flesh,  and  the  spiritual  mind.4 
Jesus  contrasts  them  as  life,  properly  so  named,  and 

1  John  xii.  25  ;  Luke  ix.  23.  2  2  Tim.  i.  10. 

3  Ta  6e\rjfJt.a,Ta  TTJS  aapubs  Ka.1  r&v  diavoiuv. — Ephesians  ii.  3. 

4  Romans  chap.  viii. 


VIL]  TESTIMONY  OF  JESUS  TO  HIMSELF.  183 

life  in  this  world.1  And  the  moment  we  seriously 
attend  to  conscience,  to  the  suggestions  which  concern 
practice  and  conduct,  we  can  see  plainly  enough  from 
which  source  a  suggestion  comes,  and  that  the  sug- 
gestions from  one  source  are  to  overrule  those  from 
the  other. 

But  this  is  a  negative  state  of  things,  a  reign  of 
check  and  constraint,  a  reign,  merely,  of  morality. 
Jesus  changed  it  into  what  was  positive  and  attrac- 
tive, lighted  it  up,  made  it  religion,  by  the  idea  of 
two  lives.  One  of  them  life  properly  so  called,  full  of 
light,  endurance,  felicity,  in  connection  with  the 
higher  and  permanent  self;  and  the  other  of  them 
life  improperly  so  called,  in  connection  with  the  lower 
and  transient  self.  The  first  kind  of  life  was  already 
a  cherished  ideal  with  Israel  ("  Thou  wilt  show  me 
the  path  of  life  /")  ; 2  and  a  man  might  be  placed  in 
it,  Jesus  said,  by  dying  to  the  second.  For  it  is  to 
be  noted  that  our  common  expression,  "  deny  himself," 
is  an  inadequate  and  misleading  version  of  the  words 
used  by  Jesus.  To  deny  one's  self  is  commonly 
understood  to  mean  that  one  refuses  one's  self  some- 
thing. But  what  Jesus  says  is  :  "  Let  a  man  disown 
himself,  renounce  himself,  die  as  regards  his  old  self, 
and  so  live."  Himself,  the  old  man,  the  life  in  this 
world,  meant  following  those  "  wishes  of  the  flesh  and 
of  the  current  thoughts"  which  Jesus  had,  by  his 
method,  already  put  his  disciples  in  the  way  of  sifting 

1  John  xii.  25.  The  strict  grammatical  and  logical  connec- 
tion of  the  words  tv  rep  /c6oyxy  TOVTI$  is  with  6  fiLff&v,  but  the 
sense  and  effect  is  as  given  above.  2  Ps.  xvi.  11. 


184  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

and  scrutinising,  and  of  trying  by  the  standard  of 
conformity  to  conscience. 

Thus,  after  putting  him  by  his  method  in  the  way 
to  find  what  doing  righteousness  was,  by  his  secret 
Jesus  put  the  disciple  in  the  way  of  doing  it.  For 
the  breaking  the  sway  of  what  is  commonly  called  one's 
self,  ceasing  our  concern  with  it  and  leaving  it  to  perish, 
is  not,  Jesus  said,  being  thwarted  or  crossed,  but  living. 
And  the  proof  of  this  is  that  it  has  the  characters  of 
life  in  the  highest  degree, — the  sense  of  going  right, 
hitting  the  mark,  succeeding.  That  is,  it  has  the 
characters  of  happiness;  and  happiness  is,  for  Israel, 
the  same  thing  as  having  the  Eternal  with  us,  seeing 
the  salvation  of  God.  "The  tree,"  as  Jesus  said, 
and  as  men's  common  sense  and  proverbial  speech 
say  with  him,  "is  known  by  its  fruits;"1  and  Jesus, 
then,  was  to  be  received  by  Israel  as  sent  from  God, 
because  the  secret  of  Jesus  leads  to  the  salvation  of 
God,  which  is  what  Israel  most  desired.  The  word  of 
the  cross,  in  short,  turned  out  to  be  at  the  same  time 
the  word  of  the  kingdom.2  And  to  this  experimental 
sanction  of  his  secret,  this  sense  it  gives  of  having  the 
Eternal  on  our  side  and  approving  us,  Jesus  appealed 
when  he  said  of  himself  :  "  Therefore  doth  my  Father 
love  me,  because  I  lay  down  my  life,  that  I  may  take 
it  again."3  This,  again,  in  our  popular  theurgy,  is 
materialised  into  the  First  Person  of  the  Trinity 
approving  the  Second,  because  he  stands  to  the  con- 
tract already  in  the  Council  of  the  Trinity  passed. 

1  Matthew  xii.  33. 

2  '0  \6yos  TT/S  /SocriXefas. — Matt.  xiii.  19.          3  John  x.  17. 


vii.]  TESTIMONY  OF  JESUS  TO  HIMSELF.  185 

But  what  it  really  means  is,  that  the  joy  of  Jesus,  of 
this  "Son  of  peace,"1  the  "joy"  he  was  so  desirous 
that  his  disciples  should  find  "  fulfilled  in  themselves,"2 
was  due  to  his  having  himself  followed  his  own 
secret.  And  the  great  counterpart  to :  A  life-giving 
change  of  the  inner  inan, — the  promise :  Peace  through 
Jesus  Christ  /3 — is  peace  through  this  secret  of  his. 

Now,  the  value  of  this  rule  that  one  should  die  to 
one's  apparent  self,  live  to  one's  real  self,  depends 
upon  whether  it  is  true.  And  true  it  certainly  is ; — a 
profound  truth  of  what  our  scientific  friends,  who 
have  a  systematic  philosophy  and  a  nomenclature  to 
match,  and  who  talk  of  Egoism  and  Altruism,  would 
call,  perhaps,  psycho-physiology.  And  we  may  trace 
men's  experience  affirming  and  confirming  it,  from  a 
very  plain  and  level  account  of  it  to  an  account 
almost  as  high  and  solemn  as  that  of  Jesus.  That  an 
opposition  there  is,  in  all  matter  of  what  we  call 
conduct,  between  a  man's  first  impulses  and  what  he 
ultimately  finds  to  be  the  real  law  of  his  being ;  that 
a  man  accomplishes  his  right  function  as  a  man,  fulfils 
his  end,  hits  the  mark,  in  giving  effect  to  the  real  law 
of  his  being;  and  that  happiness  attends  his  thus 
hitting  the  mark, — all  good  observers  report.  No 
statement  of  this  general  experience  can  be  simpler 
or  more  faithful  than  one  given  us  by  that  great 
naturalist,  Aristotle.4  "In  all  wholes  made  up  of 
parts,"  says  he,  "there  is  a  ruler  and  a  ruled; 
tliroughout  nature  this  is  so ;  we  see  it  even  in  things 

1  Luke  x.  <;.  2  j0jm  xvji    13^ 

3  Acts  xi.  18  ;  x.  36.  4  Politics  i.  5. 


186  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

without  life,  they  have  their  harmony  or  law.  The 
living  being  is  composed  of  soul  and  body,  whereof 
the  one  is  naturally  ruler  and  the  other  ruled.  Now 
what  is  natural  we  are  to  learn  from  what  fulfils  the 
law  of  its  nature  most,  and  not  from  what  is 
depraved.  So  we  ought  to  take  the  man  who  has 
the  best  disposition  of  body  and  soul  ;  and  in  him  we 
shall  find  that  this  is  so;  for  in  people  that  are 
grievous  both  to  others  and  to  themselves  the  body 
may  often  appear  ruling  the  soul,  because  such  people 
are  poor  creatures  and  false  to  nature."  And 
Aristotle  goes  on  to  distinguish  between  the  body, 
over  which,  he  says,  the  rule  of  the  soul  is  absolute, 
and  the  movement  of  thought  and  desire,  over  which 
reason  has,  says  he,  "a  constitutional  rule,"  in  words 
which  exactly  recall  St.  Paul's  phrase  for  our  double 
enemy  :  "  the  flesh  and  the  current  thoughts.  "  So 
entirely  are  we  here  on  ground  of  general  experience. 
And  if  we  go  on  and  take  this  maxim  from  Stobseus  : 
"All  fine  acquirement  implies  a  foregoing  effort  of 
self-control;"1  or  this  from  Horace:  "Rule  your 
current  self  or  it  will  rule  you  /  bridle  it  in  and  chain 
it  down!"2  or  this  from  Goethe's  autobiography: 
"Everything  cries  out  to  us  that  we  must  renounce;"3 
or  still  more  this  from  his  Faust:  "Thou  must  go 
without,  go  without  I  that  is  the  everlasting  song  which 
every  hour,  all  our  life  through,  hoarsely  sings  to 


1  Ilavros  KaXou  KTT^aros  irdvos  irpoyyeiTai  6  /car' 

2  ".     .     .     .     Aninmm  rege,  qui  nisi  paret 
Imperat  ;  huiic  frsenis,  hunc  tu  compesce  catenis." 

8  "  Alles  raft  uns  zu,  dass  wir  entsagen  sollen." 


vii.]  TESTIMONY  OF  JESUS  TO  HIMSELF.  187 

us!"1 — then  we  have  testimony  not  only  to  the 
necessity  of  this  natural  law  of  rule  and  suppression, 
but  also  to  the  strain  and  labour  and  suffering  which 
attend  it.  But  when  we  come  a  little  further  and 
take  a  sentence  like  this  of  Plato :  "Of  sufferings 
and  pains  cometh  help,  for  it  is  not  possible  by  any 
other  way  to  be  ridded  of  our  iniquity;"2  then  we 
get  a  higher  strain,  a  strain  like  St.  Peter's :  "He 
that  hath  suffered  in  the  flesh  hath  ceased  from  sin  ;"3 
and  we  are  brought  to  see,  not  only  the  necessity  of 
the  law  of  rule  and  suppression,  not  only  the  pain 
and  suffering  in  it,  but  also  its  beneficence.  And  this 
positive  sense  of  beneficence,  salutariness,  and  hope, 
come  out  yet  more  strongly  when  Wordsworth  says 
to  Duty  :  "  Nor  know  we  anything  so  fair  as  is  the 
smile  upon  thy  face;"  or  when  Bishop  Wilson  says : 
"  They  that  deny  themselves  will  be  sure  to  find  their 
strength  increased,  their  affections  raised,  and  their 
inward  peace  continually  augmented;"  and  most  of  all, 
perhaps,  when  we  hear  from  Goethe  :  "  Die  and  come 
to  life  !  for  so  long  as  this  is  not  accomplished  thou 
art  but  a  troubled  guest  upon  an  earth  of  gloom  !"4 

1  "Entbehren  sollst  du  !  sollst  entbehren  1 
Das  1st  der  ewige  Gesang, 
Den  unser  ganzes  Leben  lang 
Uns  heiser  jede  Stunde  singt." 

2  At'  dXy^SovoH'  Kal  ddvvuv  yLyverai  rj  ci^Aeta   '  ov  yhp  ol6v 
re  aXXws  aSiKlas  aira\\6.TT€<rda.i. 

3  1  Peter  iv.  1. 

4  "Stirbund  werde  ! 

Denn,  so  lang  du  das  nicht  hast, 
Bist  du  nur  ein  trtiber  Gast 
Auf  der  dunkeln  Erde  !" 


188  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

But  this  is  evidently  borrowed  from  Jesus,  and 
by  one  whose  testimony  is  of  all  the  more  weight, 
because  he  certainly  would  not  have  become  thus  a 
borrower  from  Jesus,  unless  the  truth  had  compelled 
him. 

And  never  certainly  was  the  joy,  which  in  self- 
renouncement  underlies  the  pain,  so  brought  out  as 
when  Jesus  boldly  called  the  suppression  of  our  first 
impulses  and  current  thoughts :  life,  real  life,  eternal 
life.  So  that  Jesus  not  only  saw  this  great  necessary 
truth  of  there  being,  as  Aristotle  says,  in  human 
nature  a  part  to  rule  and  a  part  to  be  ruled ;  he  saw 
it  so  thoroughly,  that  he  saw  through  the  suffering  at 
its  surface  to  the  joy  at  its  centre,  filled  it  with 
promise  and  hope,  and  made  it  infinitely  attractive. 
As  Israel,  therefore,  is  "the  people  of  righteousness," 
because,  though  others  have  perceived  the  importance 
of  righteousness,  Israel,  above  every  one,  perceived 
the  happiness  of  it;  so  self -renouncement,  the  main 
factor  in  conduct  or  righteousness,  is  "the  secret  of 
Jesus,"  because,  although  others  have  seen  that  it 
was  necessary,  Jesus,  above  every  one,  saw  that  it  was 
peace,  joy,  life. 

Now,  we  may  observe,  that  even  Aristotle  (and  it 
is  a  mark  of  his  greatness)  does  not,  in  the  passage 
we  have  quoted  from  him,  begin  with  a  complete 
system  of  psycho-physiology,  and  show  us  where  and 
how  and  why  in  this  system  the  rule  of  renouncement 
comes  in,  and  draw  out  for  us  definitively  the  law  of 
our  being  towards  which  this  rule  leads  up.  He  says 
that  the  rule  exists,  that  it  is  ancillary  to  the  law  of 


vii.]  TESTIMONY  OF  JESUS  TO  HIMSELF.  189 

our  being,  and  that  we  are  to  study  the  best  men,  in 
whom  it  most  exists,  to  make  us  see  that  it  is  thus 
ancillary.  He  here  appeals  throughout  to  a  verify  ing- 
sense,  such  as  we  have  said  that  every  one  in  this 
great  but  plain  matter  of  conduct  really  has ;  he  does 
not  appeal  to  a  speculative  theory  of  the  system  of 
things,  and  deduce  conclusions  from  it.  And  he 
shows  his  greatness  in  this,  because  the  law  of  our 
being  is  not  something  which  is  already  definitively 
known  and  can  be  exhibited  as  part  of  a  speculative 
theory  of  the  system  of  things ;  it  is  something  which 
discovers  itself  and  becomes,  as  we  follow  (among  other 
things)  the  rule  of  renouncement.  What  we  can  say 
with  most  certainty  about  the  law  of  our  being  is, 
that  we  find  the  rule  of  renouncement  practically 
lead  up  to  it.  In  matters  of  practice  and  conduct, 
therefore,  an  experience  like  this  is  really  a  far  safer 
ground  to  insist  on  than  any  speculative  theory  of 
the  system  of  things.  And  to  a  theory  of  such  sort 
Jesus  never  appeals.  Here  is  what  characterises  his 
teaching,  and  distinguishes  him,  for  instance,  from  the 
author  of  the  Fourth  Gospel.  This  author  handles 
what  we  may  call  theosophical  speculation  in  a  beau- 
tiful and  impressive  manner ;  the  introduction  to  his 
Gospel  is  undoubtedly  in  a  very  noble  and  profound 
strain.  But  it  is  theory;  an  intellectual  theory  of  the 
divine  nature  and  the  system  of  things,  which  was 
then,  and  is  still  at  present,  utterly  irreducible  to 
experience.  And  therefore  it  is  impossible  even  to 
conceive  Jesus  himself  uttering  the  introduction  to 
the  Fourth  Gospel;  because  theory  Jesus  never  touches, 


190  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

but  bases  himself  invariably  on  experience.  True, 
the  experience  must,  for  philosophy,  have  its  place  in 
a  theory  of  the  system  of  human  nature,  when  the 
theory  is  perfect;  but  the  point  is",  that  the  experience 
is  ripe  and  solid,  and  to  be  used  safely,  long  before 
the  theory.  And  it  was  the  experience  which  Jesus 
always  used. 

Undoubtedly,  however,  attempts  may  not  impro- 
perly be  made,  even  now, — by  those,  at  least,  who 
have  a  talent  for  these  matters,  —  to  exhibit  the 
experience,  with  what  leads  to  it  and  what  derives 
from  it,  in  a  system  of  psycho -physiology.  And 
then,  perhaps,  it  will  be  found  to  be  connected  with 
other  truths  of  psycho-physiology,  such  as  the  unity 
of  life,  as  it  is  called,  and  the  impersonality  of  reason. 
Only,  thus  exhibited,  it  will  be  philosophy,  mental 
exercitation,  and  will  concern  us  as  a  matter  of  science, 
not  of  conduct.  And,  as  the  discipline  of  conduct  is 
three-fourths  of  life,  for  our  aesthetic  and  intellectual 
disciplines,  real  as  these  are,  there  is  but  one-fourth 
of  life  left ;  and  if  we  let  art  and  science  divide  this 
one-fourth  fairly  between  them,  they  will  have  just 
one-eighth  of  life  each. 

So  the  exhibition  of  the  truth  :  "  He  that  loveth  his 
life  shall  lose  it,  and  he  that  hateth  his  life  in  this  world 
shall  keep  it  unto  life  eternal"  in  its  order  and  place  as 
a  truth  of  psycho-physiology,  concerns  one-eighth  of 
our  life  and  no  more.  But  Jesus,  we  say,  exhibited 
nothing  for  the  benefit  of  this  one-eighth  of  us ;  this 
is  what  distinguishes  him  from  all  moralists  and 
philosophers,  and  even  from  the  greatest  of  his  own 


VIL]     TESTIMONY  OF  JESUS  TO  HIMSELF.     191 

disciples.  •  How  he  reached  a  doctrine  we  cannot  say; 
but  he  always  exhibited  it  as  an  intuition  and  practical 
rule,  and  a  practical  rule  which,  if  adopted,  would 
have  the  force  of  an  intuition  for  its  adopter  also. 
This  is  why  none  of  his  doctrines  are  of  the  character 
of  that  favourite  doctrine  of  our  theologians,  "the 
blessed  truth  that  the  God  of  the  universe  is  a 
Person ; "  because  this  doctrine  is  incapable  of  appli- 
cation as  a  practical  rule,  and  can  never  come  to  have 
the  force  of  an  intuition.  But  what  we  call  the  secret 
of  Jesus :  "  He  that  lovetli  Us  life  shall  lose  it,  and  he  that 
hateth  his  life  in  this  world  shall  keep  it  unto  life  eternal" 
was  a  truth  of  which  he  could  say :  "  It  is  so ;  try  it 
yourself  and  you  will  see  it  is  so,  by  the  sense  of 
going  right,  hitting  the  mark,  succeeding,  living,  which 
you  will  get." 

And  the  same  with  the  commandment,  "  Love  one 
another" *  which  is  the  positive  side  of  the  command- 
ment, "  Eenounce  thyself  "^  and,  like  this,  can  be  drawn 
out  as  a  truth  of  psycho-physiology.  Jesus  exhibited 
it  as  an  intuition  and  a  practical  rule ;  and  as  what, 
by  being  practised,  would,  through  giving  happiness, 
prove  its  own  truth  as  a  rule  of  life.  This,  we  say, 
is  of  the  very  essence  of  his  secret  of  self-renounce- 
ment, as  of  his  method  of  inwardness ; — that  its  truth 
will  be  found  to  commend  itself  by  happiness,  to  prove 
itself  by  happiness.  And  of  the  secret  more  especially 
is  this  true.  And  as  we  have  said,  that  though  there 

1  John  xiii.  34. 

2  "  We  know  that  we  have  passed  from  death  to  life," — how  ? 
"  because  ice  love  the  brethren.'"     See  1  John  iii.  14. 


192  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

gathers  round  the  word  "  God  "  very  much  besides, 

yet  we  shall  in  general,  in  reading  the  Bible,  get  the 

r"surest  hold  on  the  word  "God"  by  giving  it  the 

)   sense  of  the  Eternal  Power,  not  ourselves,  which  makes  for 

^righteousness,  so  we  shall  get  the  best  hold  on  many 

expressions  of  Jesus  by  referring  them,  though  they 

include   more,   yet  primarily   and   pointedly  to   his 

"  secret,"  and  to  the  happiness  which  this  contained. 

Bread  of  life,  living  water,  these  are,  in  general,  Jesus, 

Jesus   in  his   whole   being  and  in  his  total  effect; 

but  in  especial  they  are  Jesus  as  ottering  his  secret. 

And  when  Jesus  says  :  "  He  that  eateth  me  shall  live 

by  me  ! " 1  we  shall  understand  the  words  best  if  we 

think  of  his  secret. 

And  so  again  with  the  famous  words  to  the  woman 
by  the  well  in  Samaria :  "  Whosoever  drinketh  of 
this  water  shall  thirst  again,  but  whosoever  drinketh 
of  the  water  that  I  shall  give  him  shall  never  thirst, 
but  the  water  that  I  shall  give  him  shall  be  in  him  a 
fount  of  water  springing  up  unto  everlasting  life." 2 
These  words,  how  are  we  to  take  them,  so  as  to  reach 
their  meaning  best  1  What  distinctly  is  this  "  water 
that  I  shall  give  him  "  1  Jesus  himself  and  his  word, 
no  doubt ;  yet  so  we  come  but  to  that  very  notion, 
which  Jeremy  Taylor  warns  us  against  as  vague,  of 
getting  Christ.  The  Bishop  of  Gloucester  will  tell  us, 
perhaps,  that  it  is  "the  blessed  truth  that  the  Creator 
of  the  universe  is  a  Person,"  or  the  doctrine  of  the 
consubstantiality  of  the  Eternal  Son.  But  surely  it 
would  be  a  strong  figure  of  speech  to  say  of  these 
1  John  vi.  57.  2  John  iv.  13,  14. 


vn.  1  il.MoNV   ()K  .IKS  US  TO   Ill.MSKU-'.  193 

doctrines,  that  a  man,  after  receiving  them,  could 
never  again  feel  thirsty  !  See,  on  the  contrary,  how 
the  words  suit  tJw  secret:  "He  that  loveth  his  life 
shall  lose  it,  and  he  that  hateth  his  life  in  this  world 
shall  keep  it  unto  life  eternal."  This  "secret  of 
Jesus,"  as  we  call  it,  will  be  found  applicable  to  all 
the  thousand  problems  which  the  exercise  of  conduct 
daily  offers ;  it  alone  can  solve  them  all  happily,  and 
may  indeed  be  called  "a  fount  of  water  springing 
up  unto  everlasting  life."  And,  in  general,  wherever 
the  words  life  and  death  are  used  by  Jesus,  we 
shall  do  well  to  have  his  "secret"  at  hand;  for 
in  his  thoughts,  on  these  occasions,  it  is  never  far 
off. 

And  now,  too,  we  can  see  why  it  is  a  mistake,  and 
may  lead  to  much  error,  to  exhibit  any  series  of 
maxims,  like  those  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  as 
the  ultimate  sum  and  formula  into  which  Christianity 
may  be  run  up.  Maxims  of  this  kind  are  but  appli- 
cations of  the  method  and  the  secret  of  Jesus;  and 
the  method  and  secret  are  capable  of  yet  an  infinite 
number  more  of  such  applications.  Christianity  is  a 
source ;  no  one  supply  of  water  and  refreshment  that 
comes  from  it  can  be  called  the  sum  of  Christianity. 

V. 

A  method  of  inwardness,  a  secret  of  self-renounce- 
ment ; — but  can  any  statement  of  what  Jesus  brought 
be  complete,  which  does  not  include  that  element  of 
mildness  and  sweetness  in  which  both  these  worked? 

VOL.  V.  O 


194  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

To  the  representative  texts  already  given  there  is 
certainly  to  be  added  this  other :  "Learn  of  me  that  I 
am  mild  and  lowly  in  heart,  and  ye  shall  find  rest  unto 
your  souls  /"l  Shall  we  attach  mildness  to  the  method, 
because,  without  it,  a  clear  and  limpid  view  inwards 
is  impossible  ?  Or  shall  we  attach  it  to  the  secret  ? — 
the  dying  to  faults  of  temper  is  a  part,  certainly,  of 
dying  to  one's  ordinary  self,  one's  life  in  this  world. 
Mildness,  however,  is  rather  an  element  in  which,  in 
Jesus,  both  method  and  secret  worked ;  the  medium 
through  which  both  the  method  and  the  secret  were 
exhibited.  We  may  think  of  it  as  perfectly  illustrated 
and  exemplified  in  his  answer  to  the  foolish  question, 
Who  is  the  greatest  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven  ? — when, 
taking  a  little  child  and  setting  him  in  the  midst,  he 
said :  "  Whosoever  receives  the  kingdom  of  God  as  a 
little  child,  the  same  is  the  greatest  in  it."2  Here 
are  both  inward  appraisal  and  self -renouncement ; 
but  what  is  most  admirable  is  the  sweet  reasonable- 
ness, the  exquisite,  mild,  winning  felicity,  with  which 
the  renouncement  and  the  inward  appraisal  are  applied 
and  conveyed.  And  the  conjunction  of  the  three  in 
Jesus — the  method  of  inwardness,  and  the  secret  of  self- 
renouncement,  working  in  and  through  this  element 
of  mildness  —  produced  the  total  impression  of  his 
"epieikeia,"  or  sweet  reasonableness;  a  total  impres- 
sion ineffable  and  indescribable  for  the  disciples,  as 
also  it  was  irresistible  for  them,  but  at  which  their 
descriptive  words,  words  like  this  "sweet  reasonable- 

1  Matt.  xi.  29. 
2  Matt,  xviii.  1-4  ;  Mark  ix.  15. 


vn.]     TESTIMONY  OF  JESUS  TO  HIMSELF.      195 

ness,"  and  like  "fall  of  grace  and  truth,"  are  thrown 
out  and  aimed.1 

And  this  total  stamp  of  "grace  and  truth,"  this 
exquisite  conjunction  and  balance,  in  an  element  of 
mildness,  of  a  method  of  inwardness  perfectly  handled 
and  a  self-renouncement  perfectly  kept,  was  found  in 
Jesus  alone.  What  are  the  method  of  inwardness 
and  the  secret  of  self-renouncement  without  the  sure 
balance  of  Jesus,  without  his  epieihiaf  Much,  but 
very  far  indeed  from  what  he  showed  or  what  he 
meant;  they  come  to  be  used  blindly,  used  mechani- 
cally, used  amiss,  and  lead  to  the  strangest  aberrations. 
St.  Simeon  Stylites  on  his  column,  Pascal  girdled  with 
spikes,  Lacordaire  flogging  himself  on  his  death-bed, 
BfG  what  the  secret  by  itself  produces.  The  method  by 
itself  gives  us  our  political  Dissenter,  pluming  himself 
on  some  irrational  "  conscientious  objections,"  and  not 
knowing,  that  with  conscience  he  has  done  nothing 
until  he  has  got  to  the  bottom  of  conscience,  and 
made  it  tell  him  right.  Therefore  the  disciples  of 
Jesus  were  not  told  to  believe  in  his  method,  or  to 
believe  in  his  secret,  but  to  believe  in  him;  they  were 
not  told  to  follow  the  method  or  to  follow  the  secret, 
but  they  were  told  :  " Follow  me/"  For  it  was  only 
by  fixing  their  heart  and  mind  on  Jesus  that  they 
could  learn  to  use  the  method  and  secret  right;  by 
"feeding  on  him,"  by,  as  he  often  said,  "  remaining  in 
him." 

1  Bossuet  calls  him  le  dttonnaire  J&us ;  Cowper  speaks  of 
his  questioning  the  disciples  going  to  Eimnaus  "  with  a 
engaging  air." 


196  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

But  this  is  just  what  Israel  had  been  told  to  do  as 
regards  the  Eternal  himself.  "  I  have  set  the  Eternal 
always  before  me;"'  "Mine  eyes  are  ever  toivard  the 
Eternal;"  "The  Eternal  is  the  strength  of  my  life;" 
"  Wait,  I  say,  on  the  Eternal  I"1  Now,  then,  let  us  go 
back  again  for  a  little  to  Israel,  and  to  Israel's  belief. 

VI 

We  have  seen  how  the  Jews,  at  the  coming  of 
Jesus  Christ,  had  their  thoughts  full  of  a  grand  and 
turbid  phantasmagory ; — a  vision  of  God  judging  the 
world,  sending  the  Son  of  Man  on  the  clouds  of 
heaven,  taking  vengeance  on  the  wicked,  restoring 
the  kingdom  to  Israel.  And  we  marked  the  line  of 
texts  which  this  expectation  followed :  from  the 
"Prophet"  of  Moses  to  the  victorious  "Eod  out  of 
the  stem  of  Jesse  "  of  Isaiah,  and  thence  to  the  "  Son 
of  Man,"  the  "Son  of  God,"  of  the  Book  of  Daniel, 
and  to  the  "  Messiah." 

But  there  was  another  line  of  texts  pointing  to  a 
servant  and  emissary  of  God,  besides  the  line  pointing 
to  the  Lion  of  the  tribe  of  Judah,  the  princely  and  con- 
quering Eoot  of  David.  It  stood  written  :  "  Behold 
my  servant  whom  I  uphold,  mine  elect  in  whom  my 
soul  delighteth  !  I  have  put  my  spirit  upon  him  ;  he 
shall  declare  judgment  to  the  Gentiles.  He  shall  not 
strive  nor  cry,  nor  cause  his  voice  to  be  heard  in  the 
street;  he  shall  declare  judgment  with  truth.  He  shall 
not  fail  nor  be  discouraged,  until  he  set  judgment  in 
1  Psalm  xvi.  8  ;  xxv.  15 ;  xxvii.  1,  14. 


vii.]  TESTIMONY  OF  JESUS  TO  HIMSELF.  197 

the  earth ;  far  lands  wait  for  his  law." l  Who  is 
this? 

And  again  :  "  He  was  despised,  and  we  esteemed 
him  not ;  but  he  was  wounded  for  our  transgressions, 
he  was  bruised  for  our  iniquities.  All  we  like  sheep 
were  gone  astray,  we  were  turned  every  one  to  his 
own  way;  and  the  Eternal  hath  laid  on  him  the 
iniquity  of  us  all.  And  he  made  his  grave  with  the 
wicked,  although  he  had  done  no  violence;  yet  it 
pleased  the  Eternal  to  bruise  him.  When  he  hath 
made  his  life  an  offering  for  sin,  he  shall  see  his  seed, 
he  shall  prolong  his  days,  and  the  pleasure  of  the 
Eternal  shall  prosper  in  his  hand ;  he  shall  see  of  the 
travail  of  his  soul  and  shall  be  satisfied ! " 2  Who, 
again,  is  this  1 

Is  it  the  "  Prophet "  like  great  Moses  ?  Is  it  the 
brilliant  "  Branch  "  out  of  the  root  of  Jesse,  smiting 
the  earth  with  the  rod  of  his  mouth,  and  with  the 
breath  of  his  lips  slaying  the  wicked;  with  his 
dominion  stretching  from  the  one  sea  to  the  other, 
all  things  falling  down  before  him,  all  nations  serving 
him;  with  his  seed  to  endure  for  ever,  and  his  throne 
as  the  days  of  heaven  ?  This  "  Branch  "  it  was,  whom 
Israel  identified  with  the  Messiah  coming  in  the  clouds 
of  heaven  to  give  the  kingdom  to  the  saints  of  the 
Most  High,  with  the  Son  of  Man  sitting  on  the  throne 
of  his  glory.  Was  the  afflicted  and  lowly  servant  at  the 
same  time  the  Branch,  and  therefore  the  Messiah,  the 
Son  of  God,  and  the  bringer  of  the  kingdom  ?  Israel 
never  identified  them.  Here  and  there  he  made 

1  Isaiah  xlii.  1-4.  2  Isaiah  mi>  3j  5j  6j  9.llp 


198  LITEKATUKE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

guesses  and  snatches  at  the  truth.  Momentary  eleva- 
tions of  it  there  were,  faint  approaches  towards  con- 
necting the  two  ideals,  isolated  tentatives;  but  the 
Jewish  people  at  large  had  never  grasped  the  idea  of 
the  identification,  and  it  had  never  been  so  presented 
to  them  that  they  could  grasp  it. 

And,  as  we  have  already  said,  it  was  an  extraor- 
dinary novelty,  although  the  profound  and  the  only 
true  solution  of  Israel's  wonderful  history,  when  this 
identification  was  by  Jesus  boldly  made.  "A  little 
while,"  the  Jews  were  saying,  "  and  the  God  of  heaven 
shall  set  up  a  kingdom  which  shall  never  be  destroyed."1 — 
"Nay,"  answered  Jesus,  "the  time  is  fulfilled  and  the  king- 
dom of  God  is  close  here  /  change  the  inner  man,  and  believe 
the  good  news/"2 — "But,"  said  the  Jews,  " Elias  must 
first  come."3  Jesus  replied :  " Elias  has  come  already  ;  4 
John  the  Baptist,  my  precursor,  who  preached  a 
change  of  the  inner  man  as  I  do  !" — "But  there  shall 
be  a  time  of  trouble,"  the  Jews  urged,  "  such  as  never 
was  since  there  was  a  nation  to  that  time;  abomination 
and  desolation/  a  fiery  stream  issuing  from  before  the 
throne  of  the  Ancient  of  days ;  one  like  the  Son  of  Man 
coming  with  the  clouds  of  heaven/"5  Jesus  surveyed 
the  fierce  and  impracticable  people  before  him,  with 
their  inevitable  future:  "Fear  not,"  he  answered 
mournfully,  "  where  the  carcase  is,  there  will  the  eagles  be 
gathered  together/6  soon  enough  you  will  have  the 
affliction  such  as  was  not  from  the  beginning  of  the 

1  Dan.  ii.  44.  2  Mark  i.  15.  3  Mark  ix.  11. 

4  Matt.  xvii.  12.  5  Dan.  xii.  1,  11  j  vii.  10,  13. 

6  Matt.  xxiv.  28.     See  the  whole  chapter,  and  Luke  xxi.  20. 


vir.]  TESTIMONY  OF  JESUS  TO  HIMSELF.  199 

world  to  this  time,  the  Son  of  Man  coming,  Jerusalem 
encompassed  with  armies,  abomination  and  desola- 
tion, not  one  stone  of  the  Temple  left  on  another." — 
"But  the  judgment  shall  sit  /  "  said  the  Jews,  "  and  at 
that  time  the  people  shall  be  delivered,  every  one 
that  shall  be  found  written  in  the  book!"1 — "And 
the  judgment  is  coming,"  Jesus  answered,  "  the  world- 
judgment  of  Jerusalem's  ruin  ! 2  but,  moreover,  to 
this  outward  crisis  shall  correspond  an  inward  judg- 
ment, the  new  crisis  of  conscience.  The  hour  is 
coming,  and  now  is,  when  the  dead  shall  hear  the  voice 
of  the  Son  of  God;  and  he  who  heareth  shall  live  !3 
Every  one  that  is  of  the  truth  heareth  my  voice  ;4 
the  word  that  I  speak,  the  same  shall  judge  him." 5 — 
"  But  the  righteous,"  the  Jews  said,  "  shall  awake  to 
'asting  life/"6 — "  If  a  man  keep  my  word," 
answered  Jesus,  "he  shall  never  see  death /7  but  it 
shall  be  in  him  a  fount  of  water,  springing  up  unto 
everlasting  life." 8 — "But  God's  Messiah,"  finally  rejoined 
the  Jews,  "  shall  shepherd  the  nations  with  a  rod  of  iron? 
shall  slay  tlie  wicked  with  the  breath  of  his  lips/10  his 
f krone  shall  endure  for  ever,  and  his  dominion  shall  be  from 
the  one  sea  to  the  other!  the  Gentiles  shall  be  given  to  him/"11 
— "  Ye  know  not  what  spirit  ye  are  of  !  "  said  Jesus  : 
"He  is  mild,  and  lowly  in  heart;12  he  breaks  not  the 
Iruised  reed  and  quenches  not  the  smoking  flax;13  he 

I  Dan.  vii.  10  ;  xii.  1.  2  Matt,  xxiii.  36-39. 
3  John  v.  25.              4  John  xviii.  37.     5  John  xii.  48. 

6  Dan.  xii.  2.  ?  j0}m  vm  5^       a  j^n  iv.  14. 

9  Ps.  ii.  9.  10  Isaiah  xi.  4. 

II  Ps.  Ixxxix.  4  ;  Ixxii.  8 ;  ii.  8  ;  and  Isaiah  liv.  3. 

12  Matt.  xi.  29.  «  Matt.  xii.  20. 


200  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

must  suffer  many  tilings  and  he  rejected  of  his  generation.1 
Except  a  corn  of  wheat  fall  to  the)  ground  and  die,  it 
abideth  alone,  but  if  it  die  it  bringeth  forth  much  fruit;12 
and  /,  if  I  be  lifted  up  from  the  earth,  will  draw  all  men 
unto  me  /  "  3  Then,  turning  to  the  disciples  :  "  Fear 
not,  little  flock,  for  it  is  your  Father's  good  pleasure 
to  give  you  the  kingdom/*  And  other  sheep  I  have, 
not  of  this  fold ;  they  also  shall  be  brought  /  and  there 
shall  be  one  flock,  one  shepherd  ! "  5 

By  a  line  like  this  did  Jesus  identify  the  two  ideals, 
— the  ideal  of  popular  Aberglaube  and  his  own.  And 
this  is  why  the  phrases  of  the  popular  Aberglaube  come 
so  often  from  his  lips.  He  was  for  ever  translating  it 
into  the  sense  of  the  higher  ideal,  the  only  sense  in 
which  it  had  truth  and  grandeur.  It  was  hopeless 
that  the  Jews  should  go  along  with  him.  The  best 
of  his  disciples  went  along  with  him  but  imperfectly, 
and  popular  Christianity  has  fallen  far  behind  the  best 
of  his  disciples.  The  hour  is  coming,  and  now  is,  when 
the  dead  shall  hear  the  wice  of  the  Son  of  God,  and  they 
who  hear  shall  live/6 — this  saying  could  not  lift  the 
Jews  out  of  their  Aberglaube  into  the  ideal  of  Jesus, 
with  its  new  meaning  for  the  words  life  and  death. 
But  neither  has  it  lifted  popular  Christianity ;  which 
out  of  this  and  other  like  sayings  has  fashioned  for 
itself  an  Aberglaube  precisely  corresponding  to  that 
of  the  Jews. 

Yet  Jesus  could  not  but  use  the  dominant  phrases 
of  the  Jewish  religion,  if  he  was  to  talk  to  the  Jewish 

1  Luke  xvii.  25.  2  John  xii.  24.  3  John  xii.  32. 

4  Luke  xii.  32.  5  John  x.  16.  6  John  v.  25. 


vii.]  TESTIMONY  OF  JESUS  TO  HIMSELF.  201 

people  about  religion  at  all.  And  we  have  now  seen 
that  he  did  use  them,  and  how.  And  this  leads  us 
further,  and  explains  his  way  of  using  such  words  as 
the  Christ  or  Messiah,  the  Son  of  Man,  the  Son  of  God. 
For,  as  the  Jews  were  always  talking  about  the 
Messiah,  so  they  were  always  talking,  we  know, 
about  God.  And  they  believed  in  God's  Messiah 
after  their  notion  of  him,  because  they  believed  in 
God  after  their  notion  of  him; — but  both  notions 
were  wrong.  All  their  aspirations  were  now  turned 
towards  the  Messiah ;  whoever  would  do  them  good, 
must  first  change  their  ideal  of  the  Messiah.  But 
their  ideal  of  God's  Messiah  depended  upon  their 
notion  of  God.  This  notion  was  now  false,  like  their 
ideal  of  the  Messiah ;  but  once  it  had  been  true,  or, 
at  least,  true  comparatively ; — once  Israel  had  had 
the  intuition  of  God  as  the  Sternal  that  loveth  righteous- 
ness. And  the  intuition  had  never  been  so  lost  but 
that  it  was  capable  of  being  revived.  To  change  their 
dangerous  and  misleading  ideal  of  God's  Messiah,  there- 
fore, and  to  make  the  Jews  believe  in  the  true  Messiah, 
could  only  be  accomplished  by  bringing  them  back 
to  a  truer  notion  of  God  and  his  righteousness.  By 
this  it  could,  perhaps,  be  accomplished,  but  by  this  only. 
And  this  is  what  Jesus  sought  to  do.  He  sought 
to  do  it  in  the  way  we  have  seen,  by  his  "  method  " 
and  his  "secret."  First,  by  his  "method"  of  a 
change  of  the  inner  man.  "  Do  not  be  all  abroad,  do 
not  le  in  the  air" l  he  said  to  his  nation.  " You  look 
for  the  kingdom  of  God.  The  kingdom  of  God  is 

Luke  xii.  29. 


202  LITEKATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

the  reign  of  righteousness,  God's  will  done  by  all 
mankind.  Well,  then,  seek  the  kingdom  of  God ! 
the  kingdom  of  God  is  within  you  ! l  And,  next,  by  his 
"  secret"  of  peace.  "JRenounce  thyself,  and  take  up  thy 
cross  daily  and  follow  me/"2  "  He  that  loveth  his  life  shall 
lose  it,  and  he  that  hateth  his  life  in  this  world  shall  keep 
it  unto  life  eternal."5  And  the  revolution  thus  made 
was  so  immense,  that  the  least  in  this  new  kingdom 
of  heaven,  this  realm  of  the  "  method "  and  the 
"  secret,"  was  greater,  Jesus  said,  than  one  who,  like 
John  the  Baptist,  was  even  greatest  in  the  old  realm 
of  Jewish  religion.4  And  those  who  obeyed  the 
gospel  of  this  new  kingdom  came  to  the  light;5 
they  had  joy  ;  6  they  entered  into  peace  ;  7  they  ceased 
to  thirst;  the  word  became  in  them  a  fount  of  water 
springing  up  unto  everlasting  life.8  But  these  were  the 
admitted  tests  of  righteousness,  of  obeying  the  voice  of 
the  Eternal  who  loveth  righteousness.  "  There  ariseth 
light  for  the  righteous,  and  gladness  for  the  upright 
in  heart ; 9  he  that  feareth  the  Eternal,  blessed  is  he  !"10 
Now,  the  special  value  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  is, 
not  that  it  exhibits  the  method  and  secret  of  Jesus, — for 
all  the  Gospels  exhibit  them, — but  that  it  exhibits 
the  establishment  of  them  by  mean's  of  Israel's  own 
idea  of  God,  cleared  and  re-awakened.  The  argument 
is  :  "  You  are  always  talking  about  God,  God's  word, 
righteousness ;  always  saying  that  God  is  your  Father, 

1  Luke  xvii.  21.  2  Luke  ix.  23.  3  John  xii.  25. 

4  Matt.  xi.  11.  5  John  iii.  21.  6  John  xvii.  13. 

7  John  xvi.  33.  8  John  iv.  14.  9  Ps.  xcvii.  11. 

10  Ps.  cxii,  1. 


vii.]  TESTIMONY  OF  JESUS  TO  HIMSELF.  203 

and  will  send  his  Messiah  for  your  salvation.  Well, 
he  who  receives  me  shows  that  he  talks  about  God 
with  a  knowledge  of  what  he  is  saying ;  he  sets  to  his 
seal  that  God  is  true.1  He  who  is  of  God  heareth  the 
words  of  God;2  every  one  that  heareth  and  learneth  of  the 
Father  cometh  unto  me?  and  ye  have  not  his  word  abiding 
in  you,  because,  whom  he  hath  sent,  him  ye  believe  not ;  4 
if  any  one  will  do  Gods  will  he  shall  know  of  the  doctrine, 
whether  it  be  of  God."5  This,  therefore,  is  what  Jesus 
said  : — "  I,  whose  message  of  salvation  is  :  If  a  man 
keep  my  word  he  shall  never  see  death/®  am  sent  of 
God ;  because  he  who  obeys  my  saying :  Renounce 
thyself  and  follow  me!*1  shall  feel  that  he  truly  lives, 
and  that  he  is  following,  therefore,  Israel's  God,  of 
whom  it  is  said  :  Thou  wilt  show  me  the  path  of  life"  8 

The  doctrine  therefore  is  double: — Renounce  thy- 
self, the  secret  of  Jesus,  involving  a  foregoing  exercise 
of  his  method ;  and,  Follow  me,  who  am  sent  from  God  I 
That  is  the  favourite  expression : — Sent  from  God. 
"I  come  forth  from  the  Father;  the  Father  hath  sent 
me  ;  God  hath  sent  me."  9  Now  this  identified  Jesus 
and  his  salvation  with  the  Messiah  whom,  with  his 
salvation,  the  Jews  were  expecting.  For  his  disciples 
therefore,  and  for  Christendom  after  them,  Jesus  was 
and  is  the  Messiah  or  Christ.  This,  we  say,  his  dis- 
ciples, and  Christendom  after  them,  have  compre- 
hended and  accepted :  his  identification  of  himself 

1  John  iii.  33.          2  John  viii.  47.  3  John  vi.  45. 

4  John  v.  38.  5  John  vii.  17.  6  John  viii.  51. 

7  Matt.  xvi.  24.  8  Ps.  xvi.  11. 

9  John  xvi.  27,  28,  30  ;  vi.  57  ;  vii.  29  ;  viii.  42  ;  xvii.  8. 


204  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

with  the  Messiah.  On  the  other  hand,  his  fruitful 
and  profound  harmonisation  of  the  two  ideals, — the 
mild  and  suffering  Servant  of  God,  and  the  Anointed 
Prince  conquering  the  earth  in  the  cause  of  righteous- 
ness and  giving  the  kingdom  to  the  saints, — was  not 
understood  and  accepted.  At  least,  only  so  far  as 
this  was  it  accepted  :  that  the  turbid  Aberglaube,  with 
which  the  Jews  had  surrounded  this  latter  ideal,  was 
by  the  disciples  of  Jesus  borrowed  and  transferred 
wholesale  to  their  Master  and  his  future  advent. 

Meanwhile,  as  with  the  word  God,  so  with  the 
word  Christ.  Jesus  did  not  give  any  scientific  defini- 
tion of  it, — such  as,  for  instance,  that  Christ  was  the 
Logos.  He  took  the  word  Christ  as  the  Jews  used 
it,  as  he  took  the  word  God  as  the  Jews  used  it. 
And  as  he  amended  their  notion  of  God,  the  Eternal 
who  loveth  righteousness,  by  showing  what  righteousness 
really  was,  so  he  amended  their  notion  of  the  Messiah, 
the  chosen  bringer  of  God's  salvation,  by  showing  what 
salvation  really  was.  And  though  his  own  application 
of  terms  to  designate  himself  is  not  a  matter  where 
we  can  perfectly  trust  his  reporters  (as  it  is  clear,  for 
instance,  that  the  writer  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  was 
more  metaphysical  than  Jesus  himself),1  yet  there  is 
no  difficulty  in  supposing  him  to  have  applied  to 
himself  each  and  all  of  the  terms  which  the  Jews  in 
any  way  used  to  describe  the  Messiah, — Messiah  or 

1  It  is  to  be  remembered,  too,  that  whereas  Jesus  spoke  in 
Aramaic,  the  most  concrete  and  umnetaphysical  of  languages, 
he  is  reported  in  Greek,  the  most  metaphysical.  "What,  in  the 
mouth  of  Jesus,  was  the  word  which  comes  to  us  as 


vi  i.l  TESTIMONY  OF  JESUS  TO  HIM81-  I.I  .  205 


t,  God's  Clwsen  or  Beloved  or  Consecrated  or  Glori 
fad  One,  the  Son  of  God,  the  Son  of  Man;  because  his 
concern,  as  we  have  said,  was  with  his  countrymen's 
idea  of  salvation,  not  with  their  terms  for  designating 
the  bringer  of  it.  But  the  simplest  term,  the  term 
which  gives  least  opening  into  theosophy,  —  Son  of 
Man,  —  he  certainly  preferred.  So,  too,  he  loved  the 
simple  expressions,  "God  sent  me,"  "The  Father  hath 
sent  me;"  and  he  chose  so  often  to  say,  in  a  general 
manner,  "  I  am  He,"  l  rather  than  to  say  positively, 


And  evidently  this  mode  of  speaking  struck  his 
hearers.  We  find  the  Jews  saying  :  "  How  long  dost 
thou  make  us  to  doubt  ?  if  thou  be  Christ,  tell  us 
plainly/"2  And  even  then  Jesus  does  not  answer 
point-blank,  but  prefers  to  say:  "I  have  told  you, 
and  ye  believe  not."  Yet  this  does  not  imply  that 
he  had  the  least  doubt  or  hesitation  in  naming  him- 
self the  Messiah,  the  Son  of  God  ;  but  only  that  his 
concern  was,  as  we  have  said,  with  God's  righteousness 
and  Christ's  salvation,  and  that  he  avoided  all  use 
of  the  names  God,  and  Christ,  which  might  give  an 
opening  into  mere  theosophical  speculation.  And  this 
is  shown,  moreover,  by  the  largeness  and  freedom,  — 
almost,  one  may  say,  indifference,  —  of  his  treatment 
of  both  names  ;  as  names,  in  using  which,  his  hearers 
were  always  in  danger  of  going  off  into  a  theosophy 

(only  begotten)  ?  Probably  the  simple  Aramaic  word  for  unique, 
i,  nly.  And  yet,  in  the  Greek  record,  even  the  word  novayevfis 
is  not,  like  only-begotten  in  our  translation,  reserved  for  Christ  j 
see  Luke  vii.  12  ;  viii.  42  ;  ix.  38. 

1  John  iv.  26  ;  viii.  24,  28.  -  John  x.  24. 


206  LITEBATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

that  did  them  no  good  and  had  better  occupy  them 
as  little  as  possible.  "  I  and  my  Father  are  one  !  " l 
he  would  say  at  one  time  ;  and  "  My  Father  is  greater 
than  J/"2  at  another.  When  the  Jews  were  offended 
at  his  calling  himself  the  Son  of  God,  he  quotes 
Scripture  to  show  that  even  mere  men  were  in  Scrip- 
ture called  Gods;  and  for  you,  he  says,  who  go  by 
the  letter  of  Scripture,  surely  this  is  sanction  enough 
for  calling  any  one,  whom  God  sends,  the  Son  of  God/B 
He  did  not  at  all  mean,  that  the  Messiah  was  a  son  of 
God  merely  in  the  sense  in  which  any  great  man 
might  be  so  called ;  but  he  meant  that  these  questions 
of  theosophy  were  useless  for  his  hearers,  and  that 
they  puzzled  themselves  with  them  in  vain.  All  they 
were  concerned  with  was,  that  he  was  the  Messiah  they 
expected,  sent  to  them  with  salvation  from  God. 

It  is  the  same  when  Jesus  says  :  "Before  Abraham 
was,  I  am ! " 4  He  was  baffling  his  countrymen's 
theosophy,  showing  them  how  little  his  doctrine  was 
meant  to  offer  a  field  for  it.  "Life,"  he  means,  "the 
life  of  him  who  lays  down  his  life  that  he  may  take  it 
again,5  is  not  what  you  suppose.  Your  notions  of 
life  and  death  are  all  false,  and  with  your  present 
notions  you  cannot  discuss  theology  with  me ;  follow 
me ! "  So,  again,  to  the  Jews  in  the  rut  of  their 
traditional  theology,  and  haggling  about  the  Son  of 
David  ; — Jesus,  they  insisted,  could  not  be  the  Christ, 
because  the  Christ  was  the  Son  of  David.  Jesus 
answers  them  by  the  objection  that  in  the  Psalms 

1  John  x.  30.  2  John  xiv.  28.  3  John  x.  34-36. 

4  John  viii.  58.  6  John  x.  17. 


vii.]  TESTIMONY  OF  JESUS  TO  HIMSELF.  207 

(and  the  Scripture  cannot  be  broken !)  David  calls 
the  Christ  his  Lord ;  and  "  if  he  call  him  Lord,  how 
is  he  then  his  son?"1  The  argument  as  a  serious 
argument  is  perfectly  futile.  The  king  of  God's 
chosen  people  is  going  out  to  war,  and  what  the 
Psalmist  really  sings  is  :  "  The  Eternal  saith  unto  the 
king's  majesty,  Thou  slialt  conquer!"  St.  Peter  in 
the  Acts  gravely  uses  the  same  verse  to  prove  Jesus 
to  be  Christ:  "God,"  says  he,  "tells  my  Lord,  Sit 
thou  upon  my  right  hand  !  Yet  David  never  went  up 
into  heaven."2  Now,  this  is  exactly  of  a  piece  with 
St.  Paul's  proving  salvation  to  be  by  Christ  alone, 
from  seed,  in  the  promise  to  Abraham,  being  in  the 
singular,  not  the  plural.3  It  is  merely  false  criticism 
of  the  Old  Testament,  such  as  the  Jews  were  full  of, 
and  of  which  the  Apostles  retained  far  too  much. 
But  the  Jews  were,  full  of  it,  and  therefore  the  objec- 
tion of  Jesus  was  just  such  an  objection  as  the  Jews 
would  think  weighty.  He  used  it  as  he  might  have 
used  a  crux  about  personality  or  consubstantiality  with 
the  Bishops  of  Winchester  or  Gloucester;  to  baffle 
and  put  to  rout  their  false  dogmatic  theology,  to 
disenchant  them  with  it  and  make  them  cast  it  aside 
and  come  simply  to  him.  "  See,"  he  says  to  the 
Jewish  doctors,  "what  a  mess  you  make  of  it  with 
your  learning,  and  evidences,  and  orthodox  theology ; 
with  the  wisdom  of  your  wise  men  and  the  understanding 
of  your  prudent  men  I  You  can  do  nothing  with  them, 
your  arms  break  in  your  hands.  Fling  the  rubbish 
away,  cease  from  your  own  wisdom,  4  and  throw  your- 
1  Matt.  xxii.  42-45.  -  Acts  ii.  34.  3  Gal.  iii.  16.  4  Prov.  xxiii.  4, 


208  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

selves  upon  my  method  and  secret, — upon  me! 
Believe  that  the  Father  hath  sent  me  ;  he  that  receiveth 
me  receiveth  Him  that  sent  me.  If  any  man  will  do  His 
mil,  he  shall  know  of  the  doctrine  whether  it  be  of  God,  or 
whether  I  have  invented  it/"1 

And  no  grand  performance  or  discovery  of  a  man's 
own  to  bring  him  thus  to  joy  and  peace,  but  an 
attachment !  the  influence  of  One  full  of  grace  and 
truth/  An  influence,  which  we  feel  we  know  not 
how,  and  which  subdues  us  we  know  not  when ; 
which,  like  the  wind,  breathes  where  it  lists,  passes 
here,  and  does  not  pass  there  !  Once  more,  then,  we 
come  to  that  root  and  ground  of  religion,  that  element 
of  awe  and  gratitude  which  fills  religion  with  emotion, 
and  makes  it  other  and  greater  than  morality, — the 
not  ourselves.  We  did  not  make  the  order  of  conduct, 
or  provide  that  happiness  should  belong  to  it,  or  dis- 
pose our  hearts  to  it.  Man's  goings  are  of  the  Eternal, 
as  Israel  said ;  Eternal,  I  know  that  the  way  of  man  is 
not  in  himself/2  Neither  did  we  invent  Jesus,  or 
make  the  "  grace  and  truth  "  of  Jesus,  or  provide  that 
happiness  should  belong  to  feeling  them,  or  dispose 
our  hearts  to  feel  them.  No  man  can  come  to  me,  as 
Jesus  said,  except  the  father,  which  sent  me,  draw  him  /  3 
So  the  revelation  of  Jesus  Christ  in  the  new  Testa- 
ment is  like  the  revelation  of  the  God  of  Israel  in  the 
Old,  in  being  the  revelation  of  "the  Eternal  not  ourselves 
which  makes  for  righteousness."  It  is  like  it,  and  has 
the  same  power  of  religion  in  it. 

1  John  xii.  44  ;  xiii.  20  ;  vii.  17.     2  Prov.  xx.  24 ;  Jer.  x.  23. 
3  John  vi.  44. 


vi i.l     TESTIMONY  OF  JESUS  TO  HIMSELF.     209 


VII. 

Now,  then,  we  see  what  the  doctrine,  I  came  forth 
from  God,1  really  means.  We  see  how  far  it  has  any 
kinship  with  that  doctrine  of  the  Godhead  of  the 
Eternal  Son,  for  which  our  two  bishops  are  so  anxious 
to  "do  something."  We  see  how  far  the  pseudo- 
scientific  language  of  our  creeds,  about  persons,  and 
substance,  and  godhead,  and  co-equal,  and  co-eternal,  and 
created,  and  begotten,  and  proceeding,  has  anything  at 
all  to  do  with  what  Jesus  said  or  meant.  We  see  how 
impossible  it  is  that  one  should  concede  to  our 
clerical  friends  what  they  assume  to  be  beyond  dis- 
pute : — that  the  so-called  Athanasian  Creed  "  takes  the 
facts  of  Christian  doctrine,  and  just  arranges  them 
sentence  after  sentence."  We  see  how  wide  of  the 
mark  is  that  metaphysical  clergyman,  who  writes  to 
the  Guardian  that  "  Our  Lord  unquestionably  annexes 
eternal  life  to  a  right  knowledge  of  the  Godhead,"  in 
imagining  that  when  Jesus  said,  "  This  is  life  eternal, 
to  know  Thee  the  only  true  God,  and  Jesus  Christ 
whom  thou  hast  sent,"  2  Jesus  had  in  view  anything 
at  all  like  the  "  facts "  which  the  Athanasian  Creed 
"  arranges,  sentence  after  sentence."  But  we  see  more 
than  this.  We  see  how  much  a  very  common  use  of 
the  word  faith,  which  gives  rise  to  false  notions  like 
that  of  this  clergyman,  needs  amending. 

For  it  is  constantly  assumed  that  there  is  an 
opposition  between  faith  and  reason ;  and  that  those, 

1  John  xvi.  27,  2S,  30.  2  John  xvii.  3. 

VOL.  V.  P 


210  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

whom  Jesus  Christ  calls  to  believe  in  him,  he  calls  to 
receive  a  doctrine  puzzling  to  the  reason,  but  which, 
if  adopted,  will  gradually  become  clear.  It  is  obvious 
how  well  this  notion  of  faith  suits  the  recommenders 
of  such  doctrine  as  that  which  the  Athanasian  Creed 
"arranges,  sentence  after  sentence,"  which  is  certainly 
very  puzzling  to  the  reason.  But  this  is  of  the 
essence  of  faith,  it  is  said: — to  take  on  trust  what 
perplexes  the  reason.  Only  adopt  the  doctrine  which 
perplexes  the  reason,  be  a  Christian,  and  afterwards 
"you  shall  know  of  the  doctrine  whether  it  be  of 
God."  And  with  this  is  connected  what  is  so  often 
said  in  the  Bible  about  "receiving  the  kingdom  of  God 
as  a  little  child,"  about  "  babes  seeing  what  is  hidden 
from  the  wise  and  prudent." 1  The  unlettered  believer 
is,  in  fact, — according  to  this  version  of  what  the  Bible 
means  to  say, — represented  in  the  Bible  as  a  better 
judge  about  a  thing  which  perplexes  the  reason  than 
the  philosopher.  _  And  this  explains  the  disdain  with 
which  the  possessors  of  gospel-truth,  as  it  is  called,  are  apt 
to  treat  art,  and  literature,  and  science.  These  happy 
men  are  supposed  to  have,  by  faith,  a  certainty  in 
matters  perplexing  in  the  highest  degree  to  the  reason, 
which  the  vaunted  exercise  of  the  reason  can  never 
attain  to.  And  as  with  faith  in  Christ,  so  with 
faith  in  God :  it  is  taking  on  trust  something  per- 
plexing to  the  reason.  Texts  like :  They  that  seek 
the  Eternal  understand  all  things?  and :  /  have  more 
understanding  than  my  teachers,  for  Thy  testimonies  are 
my  study  ;  I  am  wiser  than  the  aged  because  I  keep  Thy 
1  Mark  x.  15 ;  Matt.  xi.  25.  2  Prov.  xxviii.  5. 


vir.]  TESTIMONY  OF  JESUS  TO  HIMSELF.  211 

commandments,1  mean,  that  we  are  better  off  and  see 
clearer  than  men  of  study  and  experience,  if,  in  spite 
of  its  puzzling  the  reason,  we  accept  in  faith,  and  they 
do  not,  some  truth  like  the  "blessed  truth  that  the 
God  of  the  universe  is  a  PERSON." 

No  one  has  more  insisted  on  this  opposition 
between  faith  and  reason  than  a  writer  whom  we  can 
never  name  but  with  respect, — Dr.  Newman.  "The 
moral  trial  involved  in  faith,"  he  says,  "lies  in  the 
submission  of  the  reason  to  external  realities  partially 
disclosed."  And  again  :  "  Faith  is,  in  its  very  nature, 
the  acceptance  of  what  our  reason  cannot  reach, 
simply  and  absolutely  upon  testimony."  But  surely 
faith  is  in  its  very  nature  (with  all  deference  be  it 
spoken  !)  nothing  of  the  kind ;  else  how  could  Jesus 
Christ  say  to  the  Jews  :  "  If  I  tell  you  the  truth,  why 
do  ye  not  believe  mef'2  Surely  this  implies  that 
faith,  instead  of  being  a  submission  of  the  reason  to 
what  puzzles  it,  is  rather  a  recognition  of  what  is 
perfectly  clear,  if  we  will  attend  to  it.3  We  cannot 
always  attend,  all  of  us ;  and  here  is  the  not  ourselves 
in  the  matter,  "the  grace  of  God."  But  attention,  cleav- 
ing, attaching  oneself  fast  to  what  is  undeniably  true, — 
this  is  what  the  faith  of  Scripture,  "in  its  very 
nature,"  is ;  and  not  the  submission  of  the  reason  to 
what  puzzles  it,  or  the  acceptance,  simply  and  abso- 
lutely upon  testimony,  of  what  our  reason  cannot 
reach.  And  all  that  the  Bible  says  of  bringing  to 
nought  the  wisdom  of  the  wise,  and  of  receiving  the 

1  T.salm  cxix.  99,  100. 
2  John  viii.  46.        3  TTCU'TO,  TO,  dvayKaia  5ij\a,  says  Chrysostom. 


212  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

kingdom  of  God  as  a  little  child,  has  nothing  what- 
ever to  do  with  the  believer's  acceptance  of  some 
dogma  that  perplexes  the  reason ;  it  is  aimed  at  those 
who  sophisticate  a  very  simple  thing,  religion,  by  im- 
porting into  it  a  so-called  science  with  which  it  has 
nothing  to  do.  Jewish  theological  learning,  the 
system  of  divinity  of  the  Jewish  hierarchy,  who  did 
not  know  how  simple  a  thing  righteousness  really 
was,  and  who,  when  simple  souls  saw  it  in  Jesus 
Christ  and  were  drawn  to  it,  cried  out:  "  This  people 
that  knoweth  not  the  law  are  cursed  7"1  it  was  at  these, 
and  at  whatever  resembles  these,  that  Jesus  Christ 
aimed  the  words  about  receiving  the  kingdom  of 
God  as  a  little  child. 

And  the  "marvellous  work  and  wonder"  about 
the  saving  truth  which  the  simple  receive  is,  not  that, 
being  difficult  to  the  reason,  it  is  yet  got  hold  of  by 
the  unlettered  and  not  by  the  wise ;  but  that,  being  so 
simple,  it  should  yet  be  so  immense,  important,  indis- 
pensable; and  that,  being  so  immense,  important, 
indispensable,  it  should  yet  so  often  be  followed  by 
quite  unlettered  people,  and  neglected  by  such  very 
clever  ones.  The  clever  are  attending  to  other 
things, — things  which  do  task  the  reason  and  intelli- 
gence, and  in  which  the  unlettered  have  no  skill  and 
no  voice;  these  things  however  are,  at  most,  only 
one-fourth  of  life.  And  this  absurdity,  for  such  it 
really  is,  we  see  every  day ; — people  attending  to  the 
difficult  science  of  matters  where  the  plain  practice  they 
quite  let  slip.  How  many  people  will  be  now 2  busy 
1  John  vii.  49.  2  Written  in  1872. 


vii.j  TESTIMONY  OF  JESUS  TO  HIMSELF.  213 

with  Mr.  Darwin's  new  book,  so  admirably  ingenious, 
on  the  natural  history  of  the  emotions,  who  yet  are 
always  using  their  own  emotions  in  the  worst  possible 
manner !  They  are  eager  to  know  how  their  emotions 
arose,  how  these  came  to  express  themselves  as  they 
do ;  yet  there  the  emotions  now  are,  and  have  for  a 
long  time  been,  and  the  first  thing  for  any  sane  man 
to  do  is  to  make  a  proper  use  of  them,  and  to  know 
how  to  make  a  proper  use  is  not  difficult; — but  all 
this  we  never  think  of,  but  investigate  zealously  how 
they  arose  !  Such  persons  are  just  like  those  learned 
inquirers  the  Cynic  laughed  at,  who  were  so  busy 
about  the  strayings  of  Ulysses,  so  inattentive  to  their 
own. 

And  Israel's  greatness  was  that  he  was  so  impatient 
of  trifling  of  this  kind,  of  being  busy  with  one-fourth 
of  life  while  the  three-fourths,  conduct,  was  forgotten. 
And  Israel  boldly  said :  "  They  that  seek  the  Eternal 
understand  all  things;"1  that  is,  they  are  occupied 
with  conduct,  righteousness,  which  truly  is,  as  we 
have  seen,  at  least  three -fourths  of  life,  and  which 
Israel  thought  the  whole  of  it.  They  have  a  hold  on 
three-fourths  of  life,  while  it  may  be  that  their  great, 
clever,  and  accomplished  neighbours  have  a  hold  on 
only  one-fourth,  or  part  of  one-fourth,  of  life.  Which 
is  the  solid  and  sensible  man,  which  understands 
most,  which  lives  most1?  Compare  a  Methodist  day- 
labourer  with  some  dissolute,  gifted,  brilliant  grandee, 
who  thinks  nothing  of  him  ! — but  the  first  deals  suc- 
cessfully with  nearly  the  whole  of  life,  while  the 
1  Proverbs  xxviii.  5. 


214  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

second  is  all  abroad  in  it.  Compare  some  simple  and 
pious  monk,  at  Rome,  with  one  of  those  frivolous 
men  of  taste  whom  we  have  all  seen  there ! — each 
knows  nothing  of  what  interests  the  other;  but 
which  is  the  more  vital  concern  for  a  man :  conduct, 
or  arts  and  antiquities  ? 

Nay,  and  however  false  his  science  and  Biblical 
criticism,  the  believer  who  applies  the  method  and 
secret  of  Jesus  has  a  width  of  range  and  sureness  of 
foothold  in  life,  which  even  the  best  scientific  and 
literary  critic  of  the  Bible,  who  applies  them  not,  is 
without;  because  the  first  is  right  in  what  affects 
three-fourths  of  life,  and  the  second  in  what  affects 
but  one-fourth,  or  even  but  one-eighth.  Each  has  a 
secret  of  which  the  other,  who  has  no  experience  of 
it,  does  not  know  the  value;  but  the  value  of  the 
learned  man's  secret  is  ridiculously  least.  This,  I  say, 
is  the  very  glory  and  marvel  of  the  religion  of  the 
A  true  Israel,  and  what  makes  this  religion,  as  Jesus 
called  it,  "the  good  news  to  the  poor/'1  that  it 
covers  nearly  the  whole  of  life,  and  yet  is  so  simple. 

The  only  right  contrast,  therefore,  to  set  up  be- 
tween faith  and  reason  is,  not  that  faith  grasps  what 
is  too  hard  for  reason,  but  that  reason  does  not,  like 
faith,  attend  to  what  is  at  once  so  great  and  so  simple. 
The  difficulty  about  faith  is,  to  attend  to  what  is  very 
simple  and  very  important,  but  liable  to  be  pushed 
by  more  showy  or  tempting  matters  out  of  sight. 
The  marvel  about  faith  is,  that  what  is  so  simple 
should  be  so  all -sufficing,  so  necessary,  and  so  often 
1  Luke  iv.  18. 


vii.]  TESTIMONY  OF  JESUS  TO  HIMSELF.  215 

neglected.  And  faith  is  neither  the  submission  of  the 
reason,  nor  is  it  the  acceptance  simply  and  absolutely 
upon  testimony  of  what  reason  cannot  reach.  Faith 
is  :  the  being  able  to  cleave  to  a  power  of  goodness  appeal- 
ing to  our  higher  and  real  self,  not  to  our  lower  and 
<t parent  self. 

VIII. 

So  we  see  how  unlike  is  Jesus  Christ's  own  doc- 
trine of  his  being  the  Son  of  God  to  the  difficult 
doctrine  of  the  Godhead  of  the  Eternal  Son,  as  the 
Athanasian  Creed  "arranges  it,  sentence  after  sen- 
tence," and  in  the  form  in  which  our  bishops  want  to 
"do  something"  for  it;  as  unlike  as  the  original 
revelation  to  Israel  of  the  Eternal  that  loveth  righteous- 
ness is  to  "  the  blessed  doctrine  that  the  God  of  the 
universe  is  a  PERSON."  And  we  see  how  the  clergy- 
men who  write  to  the  Guardian  deceive  themselves, 
when  they  imagine  that  it  is  to  these  doctrines  of  our 
bishops  that  Jesus  Christ  "unquestionably  attaches 
eternal  life,"  and  how  they  are  led  into  this  error  by 
having  more  of  turn  for  abstruse  reasoning  than  of 
literary  experience.  They  are  not  conversant  enough 
with  the  many  different  ways  in  which  men  think 
and  speak,  so  as  to  be  able  to  distinguish  rightly 
between  them,  and  to  perceive  that  the  Bible  is 
literature ;  and  that  its  words  are  used,  like  the 
words  of  common  life  and  of  poetry  and  eloquence, 
approximately,  and  not  like  the  terms  of  science, 
adequately. 

And  if  they  fall  into  mistakes  about  words  applied 


216  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

to  the  Father  and  the  Son,  by  thus  making  them 
scientific,  how  much  more  do  they  fall  into  mistakes 
when  they  extend  this  treatment  to  words  applied  to 
the  Holy  Ghost.  We  have  seen  how  the  word 
Pneuma,  just  by  reason  of  its  inward  and  infinite 
character,  was  much  employed  by  Jesus  for  his 
method  of  inwardness  and  of  deliverance  from  binding 
traditions  and  formulas;  and  how,  since  Holy  Ghost 
has  become  to  us  a  formula,  just  as  God  and  righteous- 
ness were  to  the  Jews,  to  get  the  force  of  Christ's 
use  of  the  word  "Pneuma,"  we  ought  to  retranslate 
the  word  for  ourselves,  and  to  call  it,  for  a  time 
at  any  rate,  rather  influence,  intuition,  or  some  such 
name. 

For  it  was  thus  that  Jesus  himself  used  it.  When 
Jesus  was  going  away,  above  all,  and  his  disciples 
were  to  be  thrown  on  themselves  and  left  to  use  his 
method  of  inwardness  more  deeply  and  thoroughly, 
not  having  him  to  go  to, — then  they  would  find,  he 
said,  a  new  power  come  to  their  help;  a  power  of 
insight  such  as  they  had  never  had  before,  and  which 
was  none  of  their  making,  but  came  from  God  as 
Jesus  did,  and  said  nothing  of  itself,  but  only  what 
God  said  or  Jesus  said;  a  "Paraclete,"  or  reinforce- 
ment working  in  aid  of  God  and  Jesus  :  even  the  Spirit 
of  Truth.1  While  Jesus  was  with  them,  the  disciples 
had  lived  in  contact  with  aletheia,  or  reality;  and 
they  were  promised  now  an  intuition  of  reality  within 
themselves. 

Now,  will  it  be  believed,  that  the  Athanasian 
1  John  xiv.  16,  17,  26 ;  xvi.  7-14. 


vn.J     TESTIMONY  OF  JESUS  TO  HIMSELF.     217 

Creed,  and  our  bishops,  and  the  clergymen  who 
write  to  the  Guardian^  and  dogmatic  theology  in 
general,  should  have  imagined  that  Jesus  Christ  here 
meant  to  convey  to  us  the  "blessed  doctrine"  that 
this  Spirit  of  truth,  too,  "is  a  PERSON"?  The  force 
of  metaphysical  talent  outrunning  literary  experience 
could  really,  we  say,  no  farther  go !  The  Muse,  who 
visited  Hesiod  when  he  was  tending  his  sheep  on  the 
side  of  Helicon,  and  "breathed  into  him  a  divine 
voice,  and  taught  him  the  things  to  come  and  the 
former  things,"  might  every  bit  as  well  be  made, 
with  much  display  of  metaphysical  apparatus,  "a 
PERSON."  The  influence  which  visited  Hesiod  was 
a  real  one, — that  is  as  much  metaphysics  as  we  can 
without  error,  in  a  case  of  this  sort,  apply.  Who-' 
ever  applies  more,  falls  into  absurdity. 

The  spiritual  visitant,  indeed,  which  rejoiced  the 
wise  poet  of  Ascra,  was  not  the  Paraclete  of  Jesus. 
No,  it  was  the  Muse  of  art  and  science,  the  Muse  of 
the  gifted  few,  the  Muse  who  brings  to  the  ingenious 
and  learned  among  mankind  "a  forgetfulness,"  as 
Hesiod  sings,  "of  evils  and  a  truce  from  cares." 
The  Paraclete  that  Jesus  promised,  on  the  other 
hand,  was  the  Muse  of  righteousness;  the  Muse  of 
the  work-day,  care -crossed,  toil -stained  millions  of 
men, — the  Muse  of  humanity.  To  all  who  live,  for 
all  that  concerns  three -fourths  of  life,  this  divine 
Muse  offers  "  a  forgetfulness  of  evils  and  a  truce  from 
cares."  That  is  why  it  is  far  more  real,  and  far 
greater,  than  the  Muse  of  Hesiod;  not  from  any 
metaphysical  personality. 


218  LITERATUEE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 


IX. 

But  the  whole  centre  of  gravity  of  the  Christian 
religion,  in  the  popular  as  well  as  in  the  so-called 
orthodox  notion  of  it,  is  placed  in  Christ's  having,  by 
his  death  in  satisfaction  for  man's  sins,  performed  the 
contract  originally  passed  in  the  Council  of  the  Trinity, 
and  having  thus  enabled  the  magnified  and  non-natural 
Man  in  heaven,  who  is  the  God  of  theology  and  of  the 
multitude  alike,  to  consider  his  justice  satisfied,  and 
to  allow  his  mercy  to  go  forth  on  all  who  heartily 
believe  that  Jesus  Christ  has  paid  their  debt  for 
them.  Now  we  have  seen  how  that  whole  structure  of 
materialising  mythology,  which  the  Bible  is  supposed 
to  deliver,  and  in  which  this  conception  of  the  Atone- 
ment, as  it  is  called,  holds  the  central  place,  drops 
away  and  disappears  as  the  Bible  comes  to  be  better 
known.  The  true  centre  of  gravity  of  the  Christian 
religion  is  in  the  method  and  the  secret  of  Jesus, 
approximating,  in  their  application,  ever  closer  to 
the  epieikeia,  the  sweet  reasonableness  and  unerring 
sureness  of  Jesus  himself.  But,  as  the  method  of  Jesus 
led  up  to  his  secret,  and  his  secret  was  dying  to  "  the 
life  in  this  world  "  and  living  to  "  the  eternal  life,"  both 
his  method  and  his  secret  culminated  in  his  "perfecting" 
on  the  cross,  which  he  himself  foresaw  and  foretold. 

The  miracle  of  the  corporeal  resurrection  ruled  the 
minds  of  those  who  have  reported  Christ's  sayings  for 
us;  and  their  report,  how  he  foretold  his  death,  cannot 
always  be  entirely  accepted.  One  of  them  alleges  him 


vii.]  TKSTIMONY  OF  JESUS  TO  HIMSELF.  219 

to  have  foretold  it  by  pointing  to  his  body  and  saying : 
Destroy  this  temple,  and  in  three  days  I  mil  raise  it  up  fl 
Now,  here  is  certainly  an  instance  of  the  retrospective 
pressure  exercised  on  words  of  Jesus  by  the  established 
belief  in  the  resurrection.  He  had  said  of  the  Temple 
at  Jerusalem  :  There  shall  not  be  left  of  it  one  stone  upon 
another.2  He  had  said  of  himself  and  this  much- 
reverenced  Temple :  There  standeth  here  One  greater  than 
the  Temple.3  He  had  said  he  should  be  put  to  death, 
and  the  death  of  the  worst  malefactors,  crucifixion.4 
This  death  he  had  also  called  his  glorification,  his 
perfection.5  He  had  said,  using  a  Hebrew  form  of 
expression,  that  this  his  perfection  or  glorification 
should  come  in  three  days  (that  is,  very  shortly) :  /  do 
cures  to-day  and  to-morrow,  and  the  third  day  I  shall  be  per- 
fected.6 Nothing  more  was  needed.  All  the  elements 
for  a  simply  miraculous  prediction  by  Jesus  of  his 
own  death  and  bodily  resurrection  were  ready  to  the 
miracle-maker's  hand !  Jesus  had  not  only  said :  They 
shall  crucify  me,  and  the  third  day  I  mil  rise  again.*? 
He  had  also  said,  pointing  to  his  own  body  :  Destroy 
this  temple  and  in  three  days  I  will  raise  it  up  ! 

In  sayings  of  this  kind,  the  internal  evidence  is 
all-important.  Now,  the  sure  clue  of  internal  evidence 
to  follow,  in  tracing  any  words  of  Jesus  about  his  death 
and  rising  again,  is  the  clue  given  by  the  ideal  of  the 

1  John  ii.  19.  2  Matt.  xxiv.  2.  8  Matt.  xii.  6. 

4  Matt.  xx.  18,  19.  5  John  xii.  23. 

6  Luke  xiii.  32 ;  Hosea  vi.  3.     See  also  God  and  the  Bible, 
pp.  265-268. 

7  Matt.  xvi.  21  j  xx.  19 ;  Mark  x.  34 ;  Luke  xviii.  33. 


220  LITEKATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

stricken  Servant  of  God  in  the  fifty-third  chapter  of 
Isaiah.  This  ideal,  as  we  have  seen,  Jesus  had  adopted 
and  elevated  as  the  true  ideal  of  Israel's  Saviour ;  he 
had  corrected  by  it  the  favourite  popular  ideals  he 
found  regnant.  And  in  this  ideal  of  the  stricken 
Servant  of  God,  the  notion  of  sacrifice  is,  that  this 
lover  of  righteousness  falls  because  of  a  state  of 
iniquity  and  wickedness  which  he  has  had  no  share 
in  making,  and  as  the  only  remedy  for  it.  The 
notion  of  redemption  is,  that  by  endurance  to  the  end, 
and  by  his  death  crowning  his  life,  he  establishes  all 
seekers  after  good  in  their  allegiance  to  good,  enables 
them  to  follow  it  and  to  reach  true  life  through  it. 
Finally,  the  notion  of  resurrection  is,  that  his  death 
makes  an  epoch  of  victory  for  him  and  his  cause, 
which  thenceforward  live  and  reign  indestructibly. 
He  had  done  no  violence,  neither  was  any  deceit  in  his 
mouth;  he  was  bruised  for  our  iniquities,  the  Eternal  hath 
laid  on  him  the  iniquity  of  us  all;1 — there  is  the  sacri- 
fice. With  his  stripes  we  are  healed;* — there  is  the 
redemption.  But :  When  he  hath  made  his  life  an 
offering  for  sin,  he  shall  see  his  seed,  he  shall  prolong  his 
days,  and  the  pleasure  of  the  Eternal  shall  prosper  in  his 
hand  ;B — there,  to  crown  all,  is  the  resurrection. 

And  just  these  stages  we  find  again  in  Jesus, 
Which  of  you  convicteth  me  of  sin?4"  he  asked  the  Jews; 
nevertheless  :  The  Son  of  Man  must  suffer  many  things 
and  be  rejected  of  this  generation,5  the  Son  of  Man  must 
be  lifted  up;6 — there  is  the  sacrifice.  Except  a  grain  of 

1  Is.  liii.  9,  5,  6.  2  Is.  liii.  5.  3  Is.  liii.  10. 

4  John  viii.  46.  e  Luke  xvii.  25.        6  John  iii.  14. 


vn.]  TESTIMONY  OF  JESUS  TO  HIMSELF.  221 

wrn  fall  to  the  ground  and  die,  it  dbidetli  alone;1  the  Son 
of  Man  came  to  give  his  life  a  ransom  for  many  ;2 — there 
is  the  redemption.  But :  If  the  grain  of  corn  die,  it 
bringeth  forth  much  fruit ;  I,  if  I  be  lifted  up  from  the 
earth,  mil  draw  all  men  unto  me;B  If  I  go  not  away 
the  Spirit  of  truth  will  not  come  unto  you,  but  if  I  de- 
part I  will  send  him  unto  you,  and  when  he  is  come  he 
will  convince  the  world  of  sin,  of  righteousness,  and  of 
judgment;*  —  there,  there  is  the  resurrection  and 
triumph ! 

The  use  by  Jesus  of  the  words  life  and  death  must 
on  no  account,  however,  be  limited  to  this  his  cruci- 
fixion and  after-triumph,  though  in  these,  no  doubt, 
his  d}dng  and  living  culminated.  Yet  both  here,  and 
always  in  his  use  of  them,  they  are  properly  to  be 
referred  to  his  secret:  "He  that  loveth  his  life  shall  lose 
it,  and  he  that  hateth  his  life  in  this  world  shall  keep  it 
unto  life  eternal;5  renounce  thyself,  and  take  up  thy 
cross  daily,  and  follow  Me/"Q  Long  before  his  signal 
Crucifixion  Jesus  had  died,  by  taking  up  daily  that 
cross  which  his  disciples,  after  his  daily  example,  were 
to  take  up  also.  "Therefore  doth  my  Father  love 
me,"  he  says,  "  because  I  lay  down  my  life  that  I  may 
taJce  it  again  ."*  He  had  risen  to  life  long  before  his 
crowning  Resurrection,  risen  to  life  in  what  he  calls 
"my joy,"8  which  he  desired  to  see  fulfilled  in  his 
disciples  also ; — "  my  joy,  to  have  kept  my  Father's 
commandment  and  abide  in  his  love."9 

1  John  xii.  24.         2  Matthew  xx.  28.         3  John  xii.  24,  32. 
4  John  xvi.  7,  8.     5  John  xii.  25.  6  Luke  ix.  23. 

7  John  x.  17.  8  John  xvii.  13.  9  John  xv.  10,  11. 


222  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

Nay,  and  there  is  no  more  powerful  testimony  to 
Jesus  Christ's  real  use  of  the  words  life  and  death, 
than  a  famous  text,  borrowed  from  Jewish  Aberglaube, 
which  popular  Christianity  has  wrested  in  support  of 
its  tenet  of  a  physical  resurrection  at  the  Messiah's 
second  advent.  Whatever  we  may  think  of  the 
narrative  of  the  raising  of  Lazarus,  we  need  have  no 
difficulty  in  believing  that  Jesus  really  did  say  to  the 
brother  or  sister  of  a  dead  disciple:  "Thy  brother 
shall  rise  again  !"  and  that  the  mourner  replied  :  "I 
know  that  he  shall  rise  again  in  the  resurrection  at 
the  last  day."1  For  the  answer  which  follows  has 
the  certain  stamp  of  Jesus :  "  /  am  the  resurrection  and 
the  life  ;  "he,  that  believeth  on  me,  though  he  die,  shall  live, 
and  whosoever  liveth  and  believeth  on  me  shall  never  die."2 
Now,  Martha  believed  already  in  the  resurrection  of 
Jewish  and  Christian  Aberglaube, — the  resurrection 
according  to  the  Book  of  Daniel  and  the  Book  of 
Enoch,  the  resurrection  of  the  last  day,  when  "they 
that  sleep  in  the  dust  of  the  earth  shall  awake,  some 
to  everlasting  life,  and  some  to  shame  and  everlasting 
contempt."3  But  Jesus  corrects  her  Aberglaube,  by 
telling  her  that  her  brother  is  not  dead  at  all ;  and 
his  words,  out  of  which  the  story  of  the  miracle  very 
likely  grew,  do  really  make  the  miracle  quite  unneces- 
sary. "He  that  has  believed  on  me  and  had  my 
secret,"  says  Jesus,  "  though  his  body  die  to  the  life 
of  this  world,  still  lives ;  for  such  an  one  had  died  to 
the  life  of  this  world  already,  and  found  true  life, 

1  John  xi.  23,  24.  2  Ibid.  25,  26. 

3  Daniel  xii.  2. 


vii.]  TESTIMONY  OF  JESUS  TO  HIMSELF.  223 

life  out  of  himself,  life  in  the  Eternal  that  loveth 
righteousness,  by  doing  so."1 

Just  in  the  same  way,  moreover,  in  his  promise  to 
see  his  disciples  again  after  his  crucifixion  and  to  take 
up  his  abode  with  them,  Jesus  corrects,  for  those  who 
have  eyes  to  read,  he  corrects  in  the  clearest  and  most 
decisive  way  those  very  errors,  with  which  our  com- 
mon material  conceptions  of  life  and  death  have  made 
us  invest  his  death  and  resurrection.  "Yet  a  little 
while,"  he  says,  "and  the  world  seeth  me  no  more; 
but  ye  see  me,  because  I  live,  and  ye  shall  live  too. 
He  that  hath  my  commandments  and  keepeth  them, 
he  it  is  that  loveth  me;  and  him  that  loveth  me  I  will 
love,  and  will  manifest  myself  to  him."  Jude  naturally 
objects :  "  How  is  it  that  thou  wilt  manifest  thyself 
to  us  and  not  to  the  world  1"  And  Jesus  answers : 
"If  a  man  love  me,  he  will  keep  my  word,  and  my 
Father  will  love  him,  and  we  will  come  unto  him  and 
make  our  abode  with  him."2  Therefore  the  manifesta- 
tion of  himself  he  speaks  of  is  nothing  external  and 
material.  It  is, — like  the  manifestation  of  God  to 
him  that  ordereth  his  conversation  right, — the  internal 
life  and  joy  in  keeping  the  commandments.  It  is  the 
life  for  the  disciples  of  Christ,  in  and  with  Christ,  in 
keeping  the  commandments  of  God ;  those  command- 
ments, which  had  at  last  in  their  true  scope  been 
made  known  to  men,  but  solely  through  Jesus  Christ's 
method  and  through  his  secret. 

1  For  additional  remarks  on  this  miracle  of  the  raising  of 
Lazarus,  see  God  and  the  Bible,  pp.  310,  311. 

2  John  xiv.  19-23.     See  also  God  and  the  Bible,  pp.  258-270. 


224  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 


X. 

Thus,  then,  did  Jesus  seek  to  transform  the  im- 
mense materialising  Aberglaube  into  which  the  religion 
of  Israel  had  fallen,  and  to  spiritualise  it  at  all  points; 
while  in  his  method  and  secret  he  supplied  a  sure 
basis  for  practice.  But  to  follow  him  entirely  there 
was  needed  an  epieikeia,  an  unfailing  sweetness  and 
unerring  perception,  like  his  own.  It  was  much  if 
his  disciples  got  firm  hold  on  his  method  and  his 
secret ;  and  if  they  transmitted  fragments  enough  of 
his  lofty  spiritualism  to  make  it  in  the  fulness  of  time 
discernible,  and  to  make  it  at  once  and  from  the  first 
in  a  large  degree  serviceable.  Who  can  read  in  the 
Gospels  the  comments  preserved  to  us,  both  of 
disciples  and  of  others,  on  what  he  said,  and  not 
feel  that  Jesus  must  have  known,  while  he  neverthe- 
less persevered  in  saying  them,  how  things  like : 
"Before  Abraham  was,  I  am"1  or:  "I  will  not  leave 
you  comfortless,  I  will  come  unto  you"2  would  be  mis- 
apprehended by  those  who  heard  them  ? 

But,  indeed,  Jesus  himself  tells  us  that  he  knew 
and  foresaw  this.  With  the  promise  of  the  Spirit  of 
truth  which  should,  after  his  departure,  work  in  his 
disciples  first,  then  in  the  world,  and  which  should 
convince  the  world  of  sin,  of  righteousness,  and  of 
judgment,  and  finally  transform  it,  we  are  all  familiar. 
But  we  do  not  enough  remark  the  impressive  words, 
uttered  to  the  crowd  around  him  only  a  little  while 
1  John  viii.  58,  2  John  xiv.  18. 


vii.]  TESTIMONY  OF  JESUS  TO  HIMSELF.  225 

before,  and  of  far  wider  application  than  the  reporter 
imagined.  "Yet  a  little  while  is  the  light  with  you; 
u'alk  while  ye  have  the  light,  lest  the  darkness  overtake  you 
unawares/"1  The  real  application  cannot  have  been 
to  the  unconverted  only ; — a  call  to  the  unconverted 
to  make  haste  because  their  chance  of  conversion 
would  soon,  with  Christ's  departure,  be  gone.  No, 
converts  came  in  far  thicker  after  Christ's  departure 
than  in  his  life.  The  words  are  for  the  converted 
also.  It  is  as  if  Jesus  foresaw  the  want  of  his  sweet 
reasonableness,  which  he  could  not  leave,  to  help  his 
method  and  his  secret,  which  he  could  leave ; — as  if 
he  foresaw  his  words  misconstrued,  his  rising  to 
eternal  life  turned  into  a  physical  miracle,  the  advent 
of  the  Spirit  of  truth  turned  into  a  scene  of  thauma- 
turgy,  Peter  proving  his  Master's  Messiahship  from  a 
Psalm  that  does  not  prove  it,  the  great  Apostle  of 
the  Gentiles  word-splitting  like  a  pedantic  Rabbi,  the 
most  beautiful  soul  among  his  own  reporters  saddling 
him  with  metaphysics; — foresaw  the  growth  of  creeds, 
the  growth  of  dogma,  and  so  through  all  the  confusion 
worse  confounded  of  councils,  schoolmen,  and  confes- 
sions of  faith,  down  to  our  own  two  bishops  bent  on 
"  doing  something  "  for  the  honour  of  the  Godhead  of 
the  Eternal  Son  ! 

1  Jolm  xil  35. 


VOL.  V. 


CHAPTER  VIIL 

THE  EARLY  WITNESSES, 

OUR  object  in  this  essay  has  never  been  to  argue  against 
miracles.  Even  with  Lourdes  and  La  Salette  before 
our  eyes,  we  may  yet  say  that  miracles  are  doomed ; 
they  will  drop  out,  like  fairies  or  witchcraft,  from 
among  the  matters  which  serious  people  believe.  Our 
one  object  is  to  save  the  revelation  in  the  Bible  from 
being  made  solidary,  as  our  Comtist  friends  say,  with 
miracles ;  from  being  attended  to  or  held  cheap  just  in 
proportion  as  miracles  are  attended  to  or  are  held  cheap. 

In  like  manner,  nay  far  more,  our  object  is  not,  and 
never  can  be,  to  pick  holes  in  the  apostles  and  re- 
porters of  Jesus.  But  much  which  they  say  cannot 
stand;  our  one  object  is  to  hinder  people  from  making 
Jesus  solidary  with  this,  and  with  his  reporters'  and 
apostles'  character  for  infallibility.  To  this  extent, 
and  to  this  only,  we  are  brought  at  moments  into 
collision  with  miracles,  into  collision  with  the  disciples 
of  Jesus  and  with  the  writers  of  the  New  Testament. 
We  have  to  show  that,  the  men  being  what  and  when 
and  whence  they  were,  the  miracles  would  certainly 
grow  up  for  them  around  and  in  the  wake  of  Jesus. 

How  did  Jesus   Christ's  words :  "  /  will  see  you 


CHAP.  VIIL]          THE  EARLY  WITNESSES.  227 

again,  I  go  to  prepare  a  place  for  you  !  " l  grow  into  the 
legend, — so  beautiful,  and  round  which  have  for 
centuries  gathered  such  sacred  feelings  and  aspirations, 
yet  a  legend,  —  of  his  corporeal  resurrection  and 
ascension  ?  How  ?  Why,  Herod's  first  words,  when 
after  the  execution  of  John  the  Baptist  he  heard  of 
Jesus,  were  :  "It  is  John  the  Baptist;  he  is  risen  from 
the  dead  /  "  2  In  such  an  atmosphere  of  belief  were  the 
disciples  living,  when  their  loss  of  Jesus,  the  greatest 
loss  that  ever  befel  men,  happened.  All  his  discourse, 
when  he  was  with  them,  had  run  on  life  and  death, 
— apparent  death,  enduring  life ;  and  how  many  are 
the  stories  of  the  survivors,  in  an  atmosphere  of 
belief  like  that  of  those  Palestine  times,  refusing  to 
believe  in  the  death  of  a  leader  even  far  less  precious 
to  them,  full  of  reports  of  his  reappearance  in  this 
place  and  that  place,  feeding  themselves  on  the  promise 
of  his  triumphant  return  !  How  many  thousands  at 
this  moment,  in  Persia,  refuse  to  credit  the  death  of 
the  Bab,  their  Gate  of  life,  executed  some  years  ago ; 
assert  that  he  will  return,  that  he  has  been  seen,  that 
they  have  seen  him  ! 

But  the  reporters  of  Jesus  were  not  as  others ;  they 
were  infallible  ?  So  infallible,  that  they  report  them- 
selves, when  Jesus  reappeared,  after  all  his  labours  to 
transform  and  spiritualise  for  them  the  old  Jewish 
ideal, — they  report  themselves  to  have  met  him  with 
the  inquiry :  Lord,  wilt  thou  at  this  time  restore  the  kingdom 
to  Israd  ? 3  But  the  Holy  Ghost  had  not  then  been 
given  1  And  after  the  Holy  Ghost  was  given,  we  find 
1  John  xvi.  22 ;  xiv.  2,  3.  2  Matt.  xiv.  2.  3  Acts  i.  6. 


228  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

them  with  one  voice  asserting  that  in  the  lifetime  of  that 
generation  should  come  Christ's  second  advent  and  the 
end  of  the  world ;  Peter  falling  back  into  Judaism,  so 
that  Paul  had  to  withstand  him  to  the  face  because 
he  was  to  be  blamed,  and  Paul  himself  proving  salva- 
tion to  be  by  Jesus,  from  seed,  in  the  promise  to 
Abraham,  being  used  in  the  singular!  That  it  is 
impossible  the  disciples  of  Jesus  should  have  been, 
alone  of  all  the  disciples  in  the  world,  infallible,  that  it 
is  begging  the  question  to  say  they  were  infallible, 
need  not  be  made  out.  It  is  conspicuous,  on  the  face 
of  their  own  showing  of  themselves,  that  they  were 
not  infallible.  And  well  it  is  that  it  should  be  so. 
For  this  favourite  Protestant  Doctrine  of  the  infalli- 
bility of  the  Bible-writers,  inherited,  indeed,  from  the 
Fathers  along  with  that  of  the  infallibility  of  the 
Church,  but  kept  and  extolled  by  Protestants  as  the 
true  single  anchor  to  ride  at,  whereas  the  other  was 
rotten, — this  doctrine  involves  Christianity  in  dangers 
quite  as  serious  as  its  discarded  rival  does. 

But  it  was  not  for  nothing  that  the  Apostles  had 
lived  with  Jesus;  or  even,  in  the  case  of  a  great 
religious  spirit  like  Paul,  lived  in  his  time,  lived  in 
his  country,  had  his  presence  and  words  near  and 
fresh  to  them.  And,  untrue  and  dangerous  as  is  the 
popular  Protestant  doctrine  of  the  plenary  inspiration 
of  the  Apostles,  an  inspiration  making  them  infallible, 
but  vouchsafed  no  more  to  any  one  after  the  Apostles 
were  gone,  yet  it  rests  on  a  true  perception  of  the  vast 
distance  which  separates  them  from  after -writers  on 
Christianity,  from  the  Fathers  as  from  Luther  and 


viii.]  THE  EARLY  WITNESSES.  229 

(Ailvin,  all  alike.  This  they  owe  to  their  contact  with 
Jesus  •  or,  in  Paul's  case,  to  their  nearness  to  him.  The 
impression  of  him  was  too  fresh  and  vivid,  his  method 
and  secret  still  had  too  firmly  the  prominence  he  had 
given  them,  the  atmosphere  of  his  sweet  reasonableness 
still  hung  round  his  disciples  too  much,  to  permit  of  the 
deep  confusions  and  misunderstandings  of  after-times. 
There  is  no  pleasure  in  proving  that  the  Apostles 
sometimes  made  mistakes ;  but  to  trace  in  the  Apostles 
the  reproduction  of  the  method  and  secret  of  Jesus,  is 
one  of  the  most  delightful  of  tasks.  And  since  to 
show  such  reproduction  of  Jesus  in  his  followers 
throws  light  on  what  we  have  said  of  Jesus  himself, 
and  confirms  it,  we  will  permit  ourselves  to  do  this 
very  briefly.  And  we  will  show  it,  first  and  above  all, 
in  the  case  of  the  three  great  witnesses  to  him  in  the 
New  Testament, — St.  Peter,  St.  Paul,  and  the  writer 
who  is  called,  properly  or  improperly,  St.  John. 

II 

To  begin  with  St.  Peter.  The  First  Epistle  of  St. 
Peter  commends  itself  as  much,  one  may  say,  as  the 
genuine  work  of  the  author  whose  name  it  bears,  as 
the  Second  Epistle  bespeaks  itself  the  contrary.  And, 
except  for  the  one  strange  passage  about  the  spirits  in 
prison  and  Noah's  flood,  at  the  end  of  the  third  chapter, 
—where  the  meaning  which  was  in  the  writer's  mind 
is  probably  now  irrecoverable  for  us, — there  is  shed 
over  this  whole  production  more,  perhaps,  of  the 
epieikeia,  or  what  we  call  the  sweet  reasonableness,  of 


230  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

Christ,  than  over  any  other  epistle  we  possess.  Very 
much  this  is  due  to  its  simplicity,  to  the  unambitious 
nature  of  its  topics  and  of  its  treatment  of  them; 
because,  clearly,  the  application  of  prophecy,  the 
adjustment  of  the  old  ideal  of  Israel  to  the  new,  the 
management  of  the  ideas  of  life  and  death,  of  justifi- 
cation and  the  like, — in  all  of  which  the  epieikeia  of 
Jesus  himself  shone  forth  so  matchlessly, — are  much 
harder  to  treat  with  the  winning  simplicity  and  limpid 
intuitiveness  which  make  the  charm  of  epieikeia,  than 
conduct  itself  is. 

And  conduct  is  what  this  epistle  is  concerned  with, 
almost  from  the  first  line  to  the  last.  "Your  good 
conversation  in  Christ ; " 1  "As  He  who  called  you  is 
Twly,  be  ye  also  holy  in  all  your  conversation  ;  " 2 — this  is 
the  head  and  front  of  the  matter  with  the  writer. 
Holiness  is  but,  as  we  have  said,  a  deep  and  finished 
righteousness.  And  the  method  for  it  is  the  method 
of  Jesus : — the  inward  man  awakened,  conscience. 
"  Born  again  through  the  word  of  God  that  liveth  and 
abideth ; "  3  "  The  hidden  man  of  the  heart ;  "  4  "  Having 
a  good  conscience;"5 — again  and  again  this  word 
"  conscience,"  so  strange  to  the  Old  Testament, 
appears.  And  the  two  great  groups  of  faults  which, 
in  a  rough  way,  do  sufficiently  comprehend  all  conduct, 
are  again,  as  they  were  by  Jesus,  marked  as  the 
matter  to  be  dealt  with  : — faults  of  temper  and  faults 
of  sensuality.  "  Not  conformed  to  the  former  lusts  of 
your  time  of  ignorance;"6  "The  time  past  may 

1  1  Peter  iii.  16.     2  Ibid.  i.  15.      3  Ibid.  i.  23. 
4  Ibid.  iii.  4.       5  Ibid.  iii.  16.     6  Ibid.  i.  14. 


vin.]  THE  EARLY  WITNESSES.  231 

suffice  us  to  have  wrought  the  will  of  the  Gentiles, 
having  walked  in  dissoluteness,  lusts,  excess  of  wine, 
revellings  ;  " x  "  Abstain  from  fleshly  lusts,  which  war 
against  ;he  soul ; "  2  "Be  temperate,  be  sober ; " 3 — this 
is  for  faults  of  sensuality.  "  Putting  away  all  malice, 
and  all  deceit,  and  insincerities,  and  envies,  and  all  evil- 
speakings  /" '4  "  Be  of  one  mind,  feel  with  one  another,  love 
as  brethren;"  "Be  tender-hearted,  humble  -  minded  /"5 
"The  incorruptible  of  that  mild  and  quiet  spirit  which 
is,  in  the  sight  of  God,  of  great  price;"6 — this  is  for 
the  faults  of  temper. 

So  far  the  "method"  of  Jesus;  and  next  for  his 
"  secret "  of  self -renouncement,  of  dying  to  our  appar- 
ent self,  to  our  "life  in  this  world."  "Even  though 
ye  suffer  for  righteousness,  happy  are  ye!"r  "For 
to  suffering  ye  are  called,  because  Christ  also  suffered 
for  our  sakes,  leaving  us  an  ensample  that  we  should 
follow  his  steps:"8  "As  Christ  suffered  in  the  flesh, 
arm  yourselves  likewise  with  the  same  mind,  for  he 
that  suffers  in  the  flesh  is  freed  from  sin;"9  "  Elected  of 
God  unto  obedience  and  sprinkling  with  the  blood  of 
Christ."10  And  nowhere  does  the  joy,  which  with 
Jesus  is  the  great  test  and  sanction  of  his  method 
and  secret,  come  out  fuller  and  stronger  than  in  this 
epistle.  "But  ye  are  a  chosen  race,  a  royal  priest- 
hood, a  holy  nation,  a  peculiar  people,  to  tell  forth 
the  excellences  of  Him  who  called  you  out  of  darkness 
into  his  marvellous  light/"11 

1  1  Peter  iv.  3.  2  Ibid.  iv.  11.  3  Ibid.  iv.  7. 

4  Ibid,  ii.  1.  s  jbid.  m  8>  e  Ibid  ^  4 

7  Ibid.  iii.  14.  8  Ibid.  ii.  21.  9  Ibid.  iv.  1. 

10  Ibid.  i.  2.  "  Ibid.  ii.  9. 


232  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

The  belief  in  the  bodily  resurrection  of  Jesus,  and 
the  expectation  of  his  second  advent  in  the  lifetime 
of  the  generation  then  living,  are  signal  supports  to 
the  writer's  mind.  But  our  popular  notion  of  the 
Atonement, — Christ's  death  represented  as  a  satisfac- 
tion of  God's  offended  justice, — does  not  yet  appear. 
The  governing  idea  of  the  fifty-third  chapter  of  Isaiah, 
adopted  by  Jesus  himself,  is  still  faithfully  preserved. 
Jesus  Christ  died  for  his  people  "to  redeem  them 
from  their  vain  conversation  delivered  by  tradition ; " 
Jesus  Christ  suffered,  "in  order  that  we,  dying  to 
sins,  might  live  to  righteousness."1 

III. 

Next  we  come  to  St.  Paul;  but  elsewhere2  we 
have  spoken  so  fully  of  St.  Paul's  theology  that  we 
shall  be  very  brief  here.  Need  we  say  that  righteous- 
ness is  its  ground -thought, — real  righteousness  dis- 
cerned to  be  such  by  means  of  a  change  of  the  inner 
man  1  "  Circumcision  is  nothing,  and  uncircumcision 
is  nothing,  but  the  keeping  of  the  commandments  of 
God."3  Righteousness  is  the  end  and  aim.  This  to 
begin  with ;  then,  in  the  words :  "I  exercise  myself 
to  have  a  conscience  void  of  offence  towards  God  and 
men  continually,"4  we  find  ourselves  in  the  method 
of  Jesus.  "Let  every  man  prove  by  experience  his 
own  work,  and  then  shall  he  have  rejoicing  in  himself 
alone  and  not  in  another;"5  "Prove  all  things  ly 

1  1  Peter  i.  18  ;  ii.  24.        2  See  St.  Paul  and  Protestantism. 
3  1  Cor.  vii.  19.  4  Acts  xxiv.  16.  5  Gal.  vi.  4. 


VHI.]  THE  EARLY  WITNESSES.  233 

experience,  keep  what  is  good ;  " 1  "  Prove  by  experience 
what  things  are  excellent;"2  "Able  to  prove  by  experi- 
ence what  is  that  good  and  perfect  and  acceptable  will 
of  God."3  "All  this  points  to  inward  appraisal,  the 
method  of  inwardness,  the  individual  conscience. 
Jesus  has  given  a  new  faculty  of  judging  things,  light: 
"All  things  that  are  convicted  as  wrong  are  shown  to 
be  what  they  really  are  by  the  light ;  for  whatever 
shows  things  to  be  what  they  really  are,  is  light. 
Wherefore  he  saith :  Awake  thou  that  sleepest,  and 
arise  from  the  dead,  and  Christ  shall  give  thee  light/4' 
This  is  the  new  power  of  the  method  of  Jesus,  of 
conscience.  And  no  one  has  so  well  described  as  St. 
Paul  the  working  of  conscience  as  first  set  going  by 
Christianity.  "  Commending  ourselves,  by  the  mani- 
festing of  tlie  reality,  to  ever y  human  conscience !  " 5 
"  Tlie  hidden  things  of  a  man's  heart  are  made  manifest," 
he  says;  "all  that  he  hears  convicts  him,  sifts  him  to  the 
bottom:  he  falls  on  his  face  and  worships,  declaring 
that  God  is  indeed  here  ! "  6  Nor  does  St.  Paul  fail 
to  specify  again  and  again  the  matter  wherewith 
conscience  deals  : — "the  works  of  the  flesh,"  as  he  calls 
them;  "fornication,  uncleanness,  dissoluteness,  idol- 
worship,  witchcraft,  hatreds,  strife,  jealousy,  angers, 
contentions,  divisions,  sects,  envies,  drunkennesses, 
revellings,  and  such  like." 7  They  are  manifest,  says 

1  1  Tliess.  v.  21.         2  ririlipp.  i.  10.         3  Romans  xii.  2. 

4  Eph.  v.  13,  14.  The  Epistle  to  the  Ephesians  cannot  well 
be  altogether  Paul's,  but  it  is  full  of  Pauline  things,  and  this  is 
certainly  among  them.  B  2  Cor.  iv.  2. 

6  1  Cor.  xiv.  24,  25.  7  Gal.  v.  19,  20. 


234  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

he,  and  so  they  are  ;  for  they  roughly  cover  what  all 
the  Galatians,  to  whom  he  wrote,  understood  by 
conduct, — the  whole  body  of  faults  connected  with 
our  two  great  primary  instincts,  faults  of  temper  and 
faults  of  sensuality.  Elsewhere,  to  the  Colossians,  he 
even  seems  to  follow, — but  still  in  an  informal, 
approximative  manner,  such  as  one  uses  when  one 
speaks  of  matters  so  familiar  that  to  be  precise  is 
pedantic, — he  even  seems  to  actually  follow  this 
division,  and  to  throw  faults  of  conduct  into  two 
groups  which  nearly  correspond  to  it.1  Finally,  to 
the  works  of  the  flesh,  which  are  thus  evidently 
conduct  wrong,  he  opposes  the  fruits  of  the  Spirit, 
which  are  as  evidently  conduct  right:  "Love,  joy, 
peace,  patience,  kindness,  goodness,  faith,  mildness, 
self-control."2  By  following  the  inward  method  of 
Jesus,  he  tells  us,  we  perceive  that  here  is  the  subject' 
matter  of  righteousness,  that  this  is  what  keeping  the 
commandments  of  God  really  is. 

And  that  the  "secret"  of  Jesus  was  applied  to 
this  subject-matter  by  Paul,  who  can  doubt  when 
that  secret  is  the  very  heart  of  Paul's  theology,  and 
he  came  to  view  the  crucifixion  and  resurrection  of 
Christ  altogether  in  connection  with  it  1  In  elevating 
as  his  sum  of  knowledge  "Jesus  Christ  crucified"3 
his  first  thought  was  to  insist  on  "  the  scandal  of  the 
cross  "  4  as  the  strength,  not  the  weakness,  of  Chris- 
tianity ;  to  enthrone  resolutely  Jesus  Christ's  new 
Messias-ideal  of  the  suffering  servant,  in  opposition  to 

1  Colossians  iii.  5,  8.  2  Gal.  v.  22,  23. 

3  1  Cor.  i.  23.  4  Gal.  v.  11. 


vni.]  THE  EAKLY  WITNESSES.  235 

the  Jews'  old  Messias-ideal  of  a  triumphing  conqueror. 
His  second  thought  was  the  "secret."  It  is  to  be 
noted  that  the  secret  of  Jesus  takes  a  twofold  form  in 
Paul's  writings,  a  simple  and  a  mystic  one.  The 
simple  form  is  given  in  such  a  passage  as  this :  "If 
ye  live  after  the  flesh  ye  shall  die,  but  if  through 
the  spirit  ye  mortify  the  doings  of  the  body,  ye 
shall  live.1  Here  is  the  same  easily  intelligible  play 
on  the  ideas  of  life  and  death  which  Jesus  himself 
used.  But  Paul's  favourite  form  for  the  secret  was 
a  more  mystic  one,  in  which  Christ's  death  upon 
the  cross  stood  for  death  in  general,  and  his  resur- 
rection for  life  in  general.  "If  we  correspond  to 
his  death,"  says  Paul,  "into  which  our  baptism 
buries  us  with  him,  we  shall  correspond  also  to 
his  resurrection;"2  that  is,  in  his  other  and  simpler 
phrase,  "we  shall  live."  But  of  all  this  we  have 
spoken  elsewhere ;  let  us  at  present  content  ourselves 
with  quoting,  as  Paul's  general  witness  to  the  secret 
of  Jesus,  these  three  texts,  so  strong  and  plain  that 
they  may  well  stand  as  the  great  signal-marks  point- 
ing to  it : — "I  am  crucified  with  Christ  ;"3  "If  ye  die 
with  him,  ye  shall  also  live  with  him ; " 4  "  Always 
bearing  about  in  the  body  the  dying  of  Jesus,  that 
the  life  also  of  Jesus  may  be  manifestd  in  our  body."5 
The  ivord  of  the  cross,6  as  he  calls  it,  is  his  pole-star. 
By  the  method  and  example  of  Jesus  he  has  become 
aware  of  a  new  principle  of  choosing  and  refusing,  of 
going  after  things  and  retiring  from  them.  This 

1  Rom.  viil  13.         2  Rom.  vi.  4,  5.         3  Gal.  ii.  19. 
4  2  Tim.  ii.  11.          6  2  Cor.  iv.  10.          G  1  Cor.  i.  18. 


236  LITEEATUEE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

principle  acts  always  in  view  of  a  new  creature,1  the 
higher  or  real  self,  agreeing  with  the  "  will  of  God," 
conflicting  with  the  lower  or  apparent  self,  or  the 
"wishes  of  the  flesh  and  of  the  current  thoughts." 
With  this  new  principle,  a  man's  great  aim  is  now 
"  to  put  off,  as  regards  our  former  way  of  life,  the  old 
man  that  perishes  by  compliance  with  the  misleading 
lusts/2  and  to  put  on  the  new  man  that  after  God  is 
created  in  righteousness"  And  the  secret  for  this  is, 
says  Paul,  "being  crucified  with  Christ,  or,  being  conformed 
to  Christ's  death,  or,  always  bearing  about  in  the  body 
the  dying  of  Jesus.B  Paul  told  his  converts  he  was  "in 
travail  of  them  till  Christ  be  fashioned  in  them,"4 — 
the  entire  Christ,  with  his  method,  secret,  and  sweet 
reasonableness;  but  the  great  stress  is  laid  on  the 
"secret,"  on  dying,  because  this  was  Christ's  secret, 
because  the  heart  of  the  matter  is  indeed  here.  And 
as  we  shall  do  well  to  have  always  the  "secret" 
in  our  minds  when  Jesus  talks  of  "  the  living  water," 
"  the  bread  of  life,"  so  it  is  of  the  possession  of  this 
same  secret  that  Paul  is  specially  thinking  when  he 
talks  of  "  counting  all  things  but  loss  for  the  excellency 
of  the  knowledge  of  Christ  Jesus  my  Lord ;  "  5  or  when 
he  says  :  "  God  forbid  that  I  should  glory,  save  in  the 
cross  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  whereby  the  world  is 
crucified  unto  me,  and  I  unto  the  woiid  /"6 

And  the  evidence  of  joy  which  testifies  to  the 
1  2  Cor.  v.  17. 

2  T6v  TraXaibv  &v6pUTroi>,  rbv  ^Oeipb^vov  /caret  ras  eiridv/j-las  rrjs 

s. — Eph.  iv.  22. 

3  Gal.  ii.  19  ;  Philipp.  iii.  10 ;  2  Cor.  iv.  10. 

4  Gal.  iv.  19.  5  Philipp.  iii.  8.  6  Gal.  vi.  14. 


VIIL]  THE  EARLY  WITNESSES.  237 

salvation  there  is  in  Jesus  and  in  his  secret,  and  the 
sense  of  "  not  ourselves  "  which  fills  this  joy  with  awe 
and  gratitude,  and  makes  it  religious  to  the  core,  who 
has  rendered  them  like  Paul?  "Rejoice  evermore!" 
"Rejoice  in  the  Lord  alway;  again  I  say,  rejoice!" 
"  Sorrowful,  yet  alway  rejoicing!"  "As  the  sufferings 
of  Christ  abound  with  us,  so  through  Christ  abounds 
also  the  consolation"  "The  unsearchable  riches  of 
Christ!"  "Who  shall  separate  us  from  the  love  of 
Christ?"  "0  the  depth  of  the  riches  both  of  the 
wisdom  and  knowledge  of  God!"  "It  is  God  that 
w&rkekh  in  you,  both  to  will  and  to  do,  of  his  good 
pleasure."  "He  that  glorieth,  let  him  glory  in  the 
Eternal/"1 

All  this  is  in  Paul.  And  there  is,  besides,  the 
Aberglaube,  or  extra-belief,  of  the  bodily  resurrection, 
of  Christ's  second  advent  during  the  lifetime  of  men 
then  living;2  there  is  the  Calvinistical  God  "willing  to 
show  his  wrath  and  to  make  his  power  known  by 
vessels  of  wrath  fitted  to  destruction;"3  there  is  the 
Eabbinical  logic,  and  the  unsound  use  of  prophecy  and 
of  the  Old  Testament.  For  popular  theology  the 
writings  of  Paul  are  a  fatal  rock ;  because  they  are 
the  products  of  a  mind  that  was  constantly  growing, 
and  because  they  affect  the  forms  of  logic  and  science 
which  a  complete  notional  system  adopts,  while  their 
true  character  and  force  is  that  of  an  approximative 
experience.  So  the  mechanical  theory  of  inspiration 

1  1  Thess.  v.  16  ;  Philipp.  iv.  4  ;  2  Cor.  vi.  10 ;  Ibid.  i.  5  ; 
Eph.  iii.  8  ;  Rom.  viii.  35  ;  Ibid.  xi.  33  ;  Philipp.  ii.  13  ;  1 
Cor.  i.  31.  2  1  Thess.  iv.  15.  3  Rom.  ix.  22. 


238  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

makes  strange  work  indeed  with  Paul's  writings. 
They  are,  however,  to  those  who  can  use  them 
aright,  inexhaustible,  not  only  in  their  power  of 
animation  and  edification,  but  also  in  their  illustra- 
tion of  the  genuine  doctrine  of  Jesus. 


IV. 

The  author  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  passes  for  the 
author  of  the  epistle  which  we  call  the  First  Epistle  of 
St.  John ;  at  any  rate,  the  Epistle  is  written  by  one 
who  had  the  ideas  of  this  Gospel  moving  his  mind. 
We  of  course,  therefore,  might  expect  that  the  Epistle 
should  tally  with  the  Gospel.  And  so  it  does ;  only 
it  upholds,  one  may  say,  in  a  certain  very  important 
respect,  the  doctrine  of  Jesus  against  the  Fourth 
Gospel  itself. 

"We  have  seen  how  the  author  of  this  Gospel  had 
a  leaning  to  metaphysics ;  so  that  he  delights  M. 
Burnouf  by  showing  a  quite  Indo-European  turn  for 
making  God  into  a  metaphysical  source  of  things, 
such  as  is  not  unworthy,  perhaps,  of  being  called  a 
cosmic  unity ;  and  Jesus  into  the  Logos,  necessarily 
related,  by  some  lofty  metaphysical  law  or  other,  to 
this  cosmic  unity.  But  presently  came  the  Gnostics, 
still  more  full  of  the  Aryan  genius,  and  still  more 
admired  by  M.  Burnouf ;  full  of  religion's  being  a 
knowing  rather  than  a  doing,  a  metaphysical  conception 
rather  than  righteousness.  And,  in  fact,  as  we  have 
said  already,  it  may  well  seem  wonderful  that  so 
great  a  thing  as  religion  should  be  taken  up  with  so 


viii.]  THE  EARLY  WITNESSES.  239 

simple  a  thing  as  conduct ;  or  that  Jesus  Christ  should 
say,  that  he  who  receives  the  kingdom  of  God  as  a  little 
child, — that  is,  who  simply  receives  it  as  concerned 
with  this  simple  matter, — the  same  is  the  greatest  in 
that  kingdom.1  Jesus  Christ  does  say  so,  however; 
and  no  one  who  had  lived  with  him,  and  felt  his 
influence,  could  doubt  that  so  it  was.  But  the 
Gnostics,  who  had  not  lived  with  him,  did  not  think 
thus ;  and  they  naturally  imagined  that  a  man  who 
was  right  about  such  grand  things  as  the  cosmic  unity, 
and  the  pleroma,  and  emanation,  and  personality,  and 
consubstantiality,  and  the  like,  must  have  true  reli- 
gion and  be  the  perfect  man.  And  they  naturally 
imagined,  too,  that  the  Christ,  the  Saviour  of  the 
world,  could  not  have  been  anything  so  unmetaphy- 
sical,  so  unworthy  of  the  cosmic  unity,  as  a  mere  man 
with  flesh  and  blood;  and  the  Docetce,  or  Appari- 
tionists,  taught  accordingly  that  Jesus  had  been  an 
apparition  or  phantom,  not  a  man  at  all.  The  writings 
of  the  Apostles  can  hardly  be  understood  unless  we 
know  that  very  often  they  are  alluding  to  these 
Gnostics  and  their  productions,  which  had  even  at 
that  early  time  their  successful  beginnings. 

Now,  the  author  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  had  a  turn, 
as  we  have  seen,  for  metaphysics,  and  the  author  of 
the  First  Epistle  of  St.  John  shows  a  conversance 
with  the  ideas  of  the  Fourth  Gospel.  But  a  man  in 
vital  contact  with  Jesus  and  aletheia,  knew  what 
reality  was,  the  reality  of  Jesus,  too  well,  to  carry  "his 
play  of  metaphysics  into  the  domain  of  that  reality. 
1  Matthew  xviii.  3,  4. 


240  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

And  by  a  sort  of  compensation,  glorious  indeed  to  the 
writer,  still  more  glorious  to  the  power  of  Jesus 
Christ's  word,  the  two  great  points  of  that  close 
cousin  of  the  Fourth  Gospel,  that  document  which  we 
call  the  First  Epistle  of  St.  John,  are  these :  Jesus 
Christ  come  in  the  flesh  !  and  :  He  that  doeth  righteous- 
ness is  righteous! l  Jesus  is  no  metaphysical  phantom, 
but  a  living  man  having  to  do  with  conduct.  Eeligion 
is  no  intellectualism,  but  righteousness.  Here  we 
have  the  substratum  as  Jesus  laid  it :  righteousness. 

And  we  have  also  the  "method"  of  conscience, 
which  tells  us  what  righteousness  is,  and  how  great  it 
is,  and  that  it  is  indeed  the  substratum.  "  Ye  have 
an  unction  from  the  Holy  One,  and  ye  know  all 
things;  the  unction  which  ye  received  from  him 
abideth  in  you,  and  ye  need  not  that  any  one  should 
teach  you,  but  his  unction  teacheth  you  of  all  things, 
and  is  true  and  is  no  lie,  and  as  he  taught  you,  abide 
ye  in  him  !"2 

It  is  characteristic  of  this  beautiful  soul,  the  source 
of  our  Epistle,  that  he  does  not  go  into  detail  and  give 
lists  of  faults.  He  has  fixed  the  method,  conscience, 
and  the  subject-matter  of  the  method,  righteousness; 
and  that  is  enough.  It  is  characteristic,  in  like 
manner,  that  he  states  and  restates  the  "  secret "  of 
Jesus  by  its  positive  and  loveliest  side.  The  "  method" 
gives  us  light,  and  the  "secret"  gives  us  the  power  of 
"walking  in  the  light;"  and,  "If  we  walk  in  the  light, 
we  have  fellowship  one  with  another."3  For  to  live  by 

1  1  John  iv.  2 ;  iii.  7. 
2  Ibid.  ii.  20,  27.  3  Ibid.  i.  7. 


viii.]  THE  EARLY  WITNESSES.  241 

dying  to  our  life  in  this  world  is  to  transfer  the 
natural  love  of  life  from  the  personal  self  to  the 
impersonal  self, — the  self  that  we  share  with  all  other 
men ;  so  that  to  die  to  oneself  is  to  love  the  brethren, 
and  by  this  side  is  the  secret  of  Jesus  always  in  our 
Epistle  presented.  "Let  us  love  one  another /"  "We 
know  that  we  have  passed  from  death  to  life  because 
we  love  the  brethren."1 

And  it  agrees  with  what  we  have  seen  in  the 
Fourth  Gospel  of  the  author's  ear  for  Christ's  pro- 
founder  teaching,  that  in  the  Epistle,  too,  we  find  the 
proof  of  God,  of  Christ,  and  of  eternal  life,  made 
experimental,  rested  on  internal  evidence.  "  No  man 
hath  ever  yet  seen  God  ;  if  we  love  one  another,  God 
dwelleth  in  us."2  Therefore  we  must  not  attempt  to 
define  God  adequately,  or  in  a  way  that  goes  beyond 
our  experience, — to  say,  like  our  theologians  :  God  is 
a  person/ — but  we  define  God  approximately,  according 
to  our  actual  experience  of  him.  And  as  Jesus  had 
said  of  this  infinite  not  ourselves,  "  God  is  an  influence," 
so  our  Epistler  says,  "God  is  love"3  And  he  says 
indifferently,  "  He  that  loveth  is  born  of  God,"  and, 
"He  that  believeth  that  Jesus  is  the  Christ  is  born 
of  God,"4  because  believing  that  Jesus  is  the  Christ 
means,  mainly,  admitting  the  authority  of  his  message 
or  secret,  and  his  secret  is :  Love  one  another  !  And 
God's  evidence  for  his  Son  is  this  :  "  The  eternal  life 
which  God  gives  us,  this  life  is  in  his  Son."5  That  is  : 
in  righteousness  we  have  the  sense  of  being  truly 

1  1  John,  iv.  7  ;  iii.  14.  2  Ibid.  iv.  12. 

3  Ibid.  iv.  16.         4  Ibid.  iv.  7  ;  v.  1.        5  Ibid.  v.  11. 
VOL.  V.  R 


242  LITERATUKE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

alive,  and  through  the  method,  secret,  and  sweet 
reasonableness  of  Jesus,  and  only  through  these,  we 
get  at  righteousness. 

As  in  the  Fourth  Gospel,  and  indeed  in  all  the 
Gospels,  the  joy,  which  is  the  signal  accompaniment 
of  life,  is  in  our  Epistle  strongly  marked :  "  These 
things  write  I  unto  you,  that  y owe  joy  may  be  fulVn 
And  the  not  ourselves,  that  element  wherein  religion 
has  its  being : — "  Herein  is  love,  not  that  we  loved  God, 
but  that  he  loved  us  ;  we  love,  because  he  first  loved 
us  ! "  2  As  we  did  not  make  the  law  of  righteousness, 
so  we  did  not,  the  writer  means,  make  "  the  fulfilling 
of  the  law,"  which  is  love.  It  arises  in  us  from  the 
way  the  not  ourselves  affects  us. 

In  our  Epistle,  the  Aberglaube  of  the  approaching 
second  advent  appears,  of  course,  prominently;  not 
so  that  of  Christ's  physical  resurrection.  On  the 
other  hand,  there  are  here  launched  phrases  destined 
to  rank  one  day  as  foremost  texts  for  the  doctrine 
of  the  Atonement :  "  The  blood  of  Jesus  Christ  cleanses 
us  from  all  sin;"  "  He  is  the  propitiation  for  our  sins."3 
No  development  is  given  to  them.  How  much  in 
them  is  figure,  how  much  is  tenet  or  the  commence- 
ments of  tenet,  we  cannot  say ;  but  there  they  are, 
they  are  launched,  and  the  hint  is  given  to  popular 
religion  to  materialise  and  blunder  with. 

V. 

The   Epistle  attributed   to   St.    James,   and   the 
Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  though  not  of  equal  import- 
1  1  John  i.  4.       2  Ibid.  iv.  10,  19.        3  Ibid.  i.  7  ;  ii.  2. 


VIIL]  THE  EAKLY  WITNESSES.  243 

uncc  with  the  documents  we  have  been  reviewing, 
suggest,  nevertheless,  two  or  three  remarks.  The 
zeal  of  St.  James  for  works  carries  us  back  to  Jesus 
Christ's  sentence :  "If  thou  wouldst  enter  into  life, 
h<-j_i  the  commandments!"1  It  is  the  voice  of  the 
indestructible  sense  in  the  writer  that  with  Jesus 
righteousness  was  always  the  end  and  aim.  The 
opposition  to  St.  Paul,  of  which  so  much  has  been 
said,  does  not  really  exist;  with  both  Apostles  the 
aim  is  identical,  righteousness.  Only  Paul  observed 
righteousness  to  be  in  danger  from  men  using  the 
Jewish  law  as  a  kind  of  spell  which  they  could  con- 
jure mechanically  with,  and  therefore  he  elevated  the 
faith  by  which  we  get  hold  of  the  "  secret "  of  Jesus, 
of  the  "  doctrine  of  the  cross."  James,  in  his  turn, 
observed  righteousness  being  in  danger  from  men 
using  faith,  as  it  may  easily  be  used,  as  a  spell  or 
charm  to  conjure  mechanically  with;  and  therefore 
he  elevated  works,  the  being  a  doer,  not  an  idle  hearer 
and  talker.  But  his  noble  expression,  "If  a  man 
offend  in  one  point,  he  is  guilty  of  all !  "  and  his  calling 
the  law  which  he  had  in  view,  "the  law  of  liberty,"2 
proves  sufficiently  that  in  no  unsound  sense  did  he 
elevate  works,  as  Paul  in  no  unsound  sense  elevated 
faith. 

The  matter  whereon  the  "  secret "  of  Jesus  finds 
exercise,  "  the  wishes  of  the  flesh  and  of  the  current 
thoughts,"  is  well  called  by  St.  James  :  "  Our  pleasures 
which  war  in  our  members."3  And  when  he  goes  on 
and  says  :  "  Being  in  with  the  world  is  being  out  with 
1  Matt.  xix.  17.  2  James  ii.  10  ;  i.  25.  3  James  iv.  1. 


244  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

God ! " l  he  has  on  his  lips,  and  in  his  thoughts  too, 
the  very  words  of  the  "  secret "  :  "  He  that  hateth  his 
life  in  this  world  shall  keep  it  unto  life  eternal."  For 
he  means,  not  as  many  readers  suppose :  "  He  that 
stands  well  with  the  world  stands  ill  with  God ; "  he 
means  :  "  He  that  is  in  with  the  pleasures  which  war 
in  our  members,  is  out  with  God." 

But  we  must  not  dwell  at  length  on  this  writer, 
instructive  as  he  is,  and  ill  as  he  has  been  often  judged. 
In  fineness  or  richness  of  spiritual  perception  his 
Epistle  may  be  inferior  to  other  Epistles;  without 
undue  disparagement  of  him  we  can  own  this.  All 
the  more  remarkable,  as  a  testimony  to  what  was 
chiefly  striking  in  Jesus  Christ,  is  his  signalling  and 
extolling  that  character  in  Christianity  into  which 
fineness  of  perception  enters  most :  epieikeia.  "  The 
wisdom  from  above,"  says  St.  James,  "is  sweetly 
reasonable"  2 

It  is  more  difficult  to  limit  ourselves  in  speaking  of 
the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews.  Almost  alone  in  the 
Bible,  it  is,  like  later  theology,  a  notional  work  as 
distinguished  from  an  experimental  work.  That  is, 
instead  of  being  found  to  run  up,  at  last,  into  an 
experience  of  the  Eternal  that  makes  for  righteousness, 
it  will  be  found  to  run  up  into  a  notion  of  Jesus 
being  the  Logos,  with  the  characters  of  the  Logos  as 
they  are  stated,  for  instance,  in  Philo;  and  of  this 
being  provable  from  Scripture  and  putting  an  end  to 
the  old  Jewish  dispensation.  And  because  of  this 

1  'H  0iX£a  TOV  K6fffJi.ov  ^Bpa  TOV  0eoO  ear/*'. — James  iv.  4. 
2  James  iii.  17. 


viii.]  THE  EARLY  WITNESSES.  245 

notional  character,  later  theology  has  so  much  used 
the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  and  is  really  in  great  part 
built  on  it.  For  later  theology  is  notional,  too ;  "  the 
blessed  truth  that  the  God  of  the  Universe  is  a 
PERSON,"  is  just  such  a  notion  as  the  ground-thesis  of 
the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  that  Jesus  is  the  Logos  of 
Jewish- Alexandrian  philosophy.  Eeligion  has  nothing 
really  to  do  with  either  thesis,  and  that  is  fortunate ; 
for  neither  thesis  is  demonstrable,  and  the  demonstra- 
tions attempted  are  often  palpably  hollow.  For 
instance,  the  whole  of  the  first  chapter  of  the  Epistle 
to  the  Hebrews  is  an  allegation  of  text  after  text 
as  meaning  Jesus,  and  as  therefore  establishing  the 
writer's  thesis,  not  one  of  which  texts  does  really 
mean  Jesus.  The  seventh  chapter,  again,  is  one  tissue 
of  clever,  learned  trifling,  all  based  on  the  false 
assumption  that  "  Thou  art  a  priest  for  ever  after  the 
order  of  Melchisedek ! "  was  really  said  to  Jesus, 
whereas  it  was  not. 

Now,  just  because  of  this  notional  character,  the 
Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  could  not  have  been  St. 
Paul's;  for  St.  Paul  goes  upon  experience,  not  notion. 
And  such  a  work  can  never  have  the  value  and  inter- 
est of  Paul's  writings,  for  it  is,  in  truth,  all  in  the  air. 
But  a  man  who  puts  a  hollow  notion  as  the  basis  of 
his  theology,  may  yet  in  treating  it  give  us  all  kinds 
of  real  and  valuable  experience;  of  this  we  have 
abundant  examples  in  the  writings  of  theologians. 
And  so  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  is  full  of  beautiful 
things,  and  things  of  real  religious  experience  ;  but 
they  are  independent  of  the  ground -thesis  of  the 


246  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

Epistle,  their  value  has  another  source  than  the  value 
of  the  writer's  main  design,  and  indeed  is  often  marred 
by  it.  Their  value  is  as  reminiscences  of  Jesus,  and 
their  witness  to  Jesus  is  the  more  striking  because  of 
the  medium  where  they  appear.  To  have  survived 
and  appear  in  such  a  medium,  they  must  have  been 
originally  very  strong. 

The  sense  that  in  righteousness  religion  begins 
^nd  ends,  the  writer  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews 
has  not.  He  talks  of  "not  laying  again  the  founda- 
tions," by  which  he  means  righteousness,  but  "  going 
on  unto  perfection;"1  by  which  he  means  such  things 
as  the  doctrine  that  Jesus  Christ  is,  like  the  Logos  of 
theosophy,  High  Priest,  and  as  the  demonstration 
about  Melchisedek.  All  this  is  of  the  same  order 
with  the  "blessed  truth  that  the  God  of  the  universe 
is  a  PERSON,"  which  our  bishops  imagine  to  be  the 
marrow  of  religion,  whereas  in  truth  it  is  not  religion 
at  all.  But  it  is  remarkable  how  frequently  the 
writer  of  our  Epistle  has  the  word  of  the  "method," 
conscience.  Again  and  again  it  recurs  with  him ; 
nowhere  in  the  Bible  does  it  appear,  within  equal 
limits  of  space,  so  often.  The  word  has  evidently 
established  itself  and  become  a  power. 

But  most  remarkable  is  the  testimony  of  this 
writer  to  the  "secret."  His  view  of  the  sacrifice  of 
Christ  as  replacing  the  sacrifices  of  the  Jewish  law  is 
all  notional,  and  is  really  quite  independent  of  Christ's 
sacrifice  as  the  "secret."  Yet  the  "secret"  appears; 
and  in  phrases  so  striking  and  so  much  profounder 
1  Hebrews  vi.  1. 


VIIL]  THE  EARLY  WITNESSES.  247 

than  the  strain  of  this  writer's  argument,  that  one  is 
tempted  to  see  in  them  a  tradition  of  words,  not 
otherwise  preserved,  of  Jesus  himself.  "It  behoved 
God,  in  bringing  many  sons  to  glory,  to  make  the  leader 
of  their  salvation  perfect  through  suffering.'"1  Christ 
"  learned  obedience  from  the  things  that  he  suffered,  and, 
being  perfected,  became  the  author  of  eternal  salvation 
to  all  who  obey  him"2  Christ,  like  mankind,  partook 
of  flesh  and  blood,  "in  order  that  by  death  he  might 
deliver  them  who  through  fear  of  death  were  all  their  life 
subject  to  bondage."^  This  is  precisely  the  "secret." 
The  pain  and  fear  and  gloom  of  dying  to  our  appar- 
ent self,  to  "  the  wishes  of  the  flesh  and  the  current 
thoughts"  are  so  great,  that  only  Jesus  and  his 
"  secret,"  lighting  the  process  up  with  joy  by  show- 
ing it  to  be  really  life  not  death,  could  overcome 
them,  and  could  enable  mankind  to  overcome  them. 
In  like  manner  the  noble  phrase,  "  without  shedding  of 
blood  is  no  remission," *  notional  and  unfruitful  as  is  its 
use  in  the  connection  where  our  author  employs  it, 
is  in  itself,  perhaps,  a  reminiscence  of  actual  words  of 
Jesus ;  certainly  it  is  a  reminiscence  of  his  "  secret." 
In  itself  it  ranks  with  the  beautiful  and  profound 
phrase  of  St.  Peter  :  "He  that  suffers  in  the  flesh  hath 
ceased  from  sin." 

VI. 

Finally,  in  the  ardour  for  martyrdom  which  followed 
in  the  Christian  Church  a  little  later,  in  the  passion 

1  Heb.  ii.  10.  2  Heb.  iv.  8,  9. 

3  Heb.  ii.  14,  15.  4  Heb.  ix.  22. 


248  LITERATUKE  AND  DOGMA.         [CHAP.  vm. 

for  seeking  out  this  kind  of  death,  courting  it,  pro- 
voking it  by  every  means  discoverable,  we  shall  not 
err  if  we  believe  that  there  is  again  visible  the  trace 
of  the  "secret."  Assuredly  many  martyrs,  in  the 
temper  with  which  they  provoked  their  death,  were 
false  to  the  epieikeia,  the  sweet  reasonableness,"  of 
Jesus,  and  laid  themselves  open  to  that  sentence  of 
Paul,  the  sentence  which  will  be  the  final  verdict  of 
religious  histor}r  on  Puritanism  also,  Puritanism 
glorying  in  its  resistances  :  "Though  I  give  my  body 
to  be  burned,  and  have  not  charity,  it  profiteth  me 
nothing."1  And  there  was  nothing  to  command  or 
advise  the  repetition,  upon  every  disciple,  of  the  actual 
bodily  execution  of  Jesus.  But  Jesus  had.  enjoined 
dying,  taking  up  the  cross,  the  "secret;" — a  long 
inward  travail,  other,  and  often  much  harder,  than 
being  once  for  all  executed.  Paul  still  understood 
what  Jesus  meant  by  dying.  But  the  apostolic  age 
passed ;  and  now  the  Christian  community  took  the 
word  literally,  and  Christians  vied  with  each  other 
which  should  run  fastest  to  the  place  of  execution. 
The  wonderful  spectacle  accelerated  Christianity's 
conquest  of  the  world;  but  it  was  already  an  evi- 
dence of  failure,  in  some  sort,  to  follow  the  mind  of 
Jesus  and  the  teaching  of  his  greatest  apostles.  Yet 
a  little  while  is  the  light  with  you/  walk  while  ye  have  the 
light,  lest  the  darkness  overtake  you  unawares  !  2 

1  1  Cor.  xiii.  3.  2  John  xii.  35. 


CHAPTEE  IX. 
ABEEGLAUBE  RE-INVADING. 

So  spoke  the  men  who  had  had  the  Light  with  them 
or  near  them.  Mistakes  they  made  and  could  not 
but  make.  But  they  still  knew,  that  to  believe  Jesus 
to  be  the  Son  of  God,  meant  to  receive  and  apply  the 
method  and  secret  of  Jesus ;  and  therefore  their  word 
is  the  Christian's  greatest  source  of  instruction  and 
inspiration  after  the  word  of  Jesus  Christ  himself. 

But  miracles,  and  the  crowning  miracles  of  the 
Resurrection  and  Ascension  to  be  followed  by  the 
second  Advent,  were  from  the  first  firmly  fixed  as 
parts  of  the  disciples'  belief.  "Behold,  he  cometh  with 
clouds  ;  and  every  eye  shall  see  him,  and  they  also  which 
pierced  him;  and  all  kindreds  of  the  earth  shall  wail 
because  of  him/"1  As  time  went  on,  and  Christianity 
spread  wider  and  wider  among  the  multitudes,  and 
with  less  and  less  of  control  from  the  personal  influ- 
ence of  Jesus,  Christianity  developed  more  and  more 
its  side  of  miracle  and  legend  ;  until  to  believe  Jesus 
to  be  the  Son  of  God  meant  to  believe  the  points  of 
the  legend, — his  preternatural  conception  and  birth, 
1  Revelation  i.  7. 


250  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [OHAP. 

his  miracles,  his  descent  into  hell,  his  bodily  resurrec- 
tion, his  ascent  into  heaven,  and  his  future  triumphant 
return  to  judgment.  And  these  and  like  matters  are 
what  popular  religion  drew  forth  from  the  records  of 
Jesus  as  the  essentials  of  belief.  These  essentials  got 
embodied  in  a  short  formulary;  and  so  the  creed 
which  is  called  the  Apostles'  Creed  came  together. 

It  is  not  the  apostles'  creed,  for  it  took  more  than 
five  hundred  years  to  grow  to  maturity.  It  was  not 
the  creed  of  any  single  doctor  or  body  of  doctors,  but 
it  was  a  sort  of  summary  of  Christianity  which  the 
people,  the  church  at  large,  would  naturally  develop ; 
it  is  the  popular  science  of  Christianity.  Given  the 
alleged  charge  :  "  Go  ye  and  teach  all  nations,  baptiz- 
ing them  in  the  name  of  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the 
Holy  Spirit,"1  and  the  candidate  for  baptism  would 
naturally  come  to  have  a  profession  of  faith  to  make 
respecting  that  whereinto  he  was  baptized ;  this  pro- 
fession of  faith  would  naturally  become  just  such  a 
summary  as  the  Apostles'  Creed.  It  contains  no 
mention  of  either  the  "method"  or  the  "secret,"  it  is 
occupied  entirely  with  external  facts ;  and  it  may  be 
safely  said,  not  only  that  such  a  summary  of  religious 
faith  could  never  have  been  delivered  by  Jesus,  but  it 
could  never  have  been  adopted  as  adequate  by  any  of 
his  principal  apostles,  by  Peter,  or  Paul,  or  John.  But 
it  is,  as  we  have  said,  the  popular  science  of  Christianity. 

Years  proceeded.  The  world  came  in  to  Christian- 
ity ;  the  world,  and  the  world's  educated  people,  and 
the  educated  people's  Aryan  genius  with  its  turn  for 
1  Matthew  xxviii.  19. 


ix.]  ABERGLAUBE  RE-INVADING.  251 

making  religion  a  metaphysical  conception ;  and  all 
this  in  a  time  of  declining  criticism,  a  time  when  the 
possibility  of  true  scientific  criticism,  in  any  direction 
whatever,  was  lessening  rather  than  increasing.     The 
popular  science  was  found  not  elaborate  enough  jto 
satisfy.     Ingenious  men  took  its  terms  and  its  data,  \ 
and  applied  to  them,  not  an  historical  criticism  show- 
ing how  they  arose,  but  abstruse  metaphysical  c£» — ' 
ceptions.      And   so  we   have   the   so-called   Nicene/ 
Creed,  which  is  the  learned  science  of  Christianity,  as 
the  Apostles'  Creed  is  the  popular  science. 

Now,  how  this  learned  science  is  related  to  the 
Bible  we  shall  feel,  if  we  compare  the  religious 
utterances  of  its  doctors  with  the  religious  utterances 
of  the  Bible.  Suppose,  for  instance,  we  compare  with 
the  Psalms  the  Soliloquies  of  St.  Augustine,  a  truly 
great  and  religious  man ;  and  of  St.  Augustine,  not 
in  school  and  controversy,  but  in  religious  soliloquy. 
St.  Augustine  prays :  "  Come  to  my  help,  thou  one 
God,  one  eternal  true  substance,  where  is  no  discre- 
pancy, no  confusion,  no  transience,  no  indigency,  no 
death ;  where  is  supreme  concord,  supreme  evidence, 
supreme  constancy,  supreme  plenitude,  supreme  life; 
where  nothing  is  lacking,  nothing  is  over  and  above ; 
where  he  who  begets  and  he  who  is  begotten  of  him 
are  one ;  God,  above  whom  is  nothing,  outside  whom 
is  nothing,  without  whom  is  nothing ;  God,  beneath 
whom  is  the  whole,  in  whom  is  the  whole,  with  whom 
is  the  whole  .  .  .  hearken,  hearken,  hearken  unto 
me,  my  God,  my  Lord ;  open  thy  door  unto  me 
that  knock  !"  And  a  further  Book  of 


252  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

popularly  ascribed  to  St.  Augustine  and  printed  with 
his  works,  but  probably  of  a  later  date  and  author, 
shows  the  full-blown  development  of  all  this,  shows 
the  inevitable  results  of  bringing  to  the  idea  of  God 
this  play  of  the  intellectual  fancy  so  alien  to  the 
Bible.  The  passages  we  will  quote  take  evidently 
their  inspiration  from  the  words  of  St.  Augustine 
just  given,  and  retain  even  in  some  degree  his  very 
forms  of  expression:  " Holy  Trinity,  superadmirable 
Trinity,  and  superinenarrable,  and  superinscrutable, 
and  superinaccessible,  superincomprehensible,  super- 
intelligible,  superessential,  superessentially  surpassing 
all  sense,  all  reason,  all  intellect,  all  intelligence,  all 
essence  of  supercelestial  minds ;  which  can  neither  be 
said,  nor  thought,  nor  understood,  nor  known,  even 
by  the  eyes  of  angels  ! "  And  again,  more  practically, 
but  still  in  the  same  style  :  "0  three  co-equal  and 
co-eternal  Persons,  one  and  true  God,  Father  and  Son 
and  Holy  Ghost,  who  by  thyself  inhabitest  eternity 
and  light  inaccessible,  who  hast  founded  the  earth  in 
thy  power,  and  rulest  the  world  by  thy  prudence, 
Holy,  Holy,  Holy,  Lord  God  of  Sabaoth,  terrible  and 
strong,  just  and  merciful,  admirable,  laudable,  amiable, 
one  God,  three  persons,  one  essence,  power,  wisdom, 
goodness,  one  and  undivided  Trinity,  open  unto  me 
that  cry  unto  Thee  the  gates  of  righteousness  !" 

And  now  compare  this  with  the  Bible  : — "  Teach 
me  to  do  the  thing  that  pleaseth  thee,  for  thou  art  my  God! 
let  thy  loving  spirit  lead  me  forth  into  the  land  of  righteous- 
ness !  " l     That  is  Israel's  way  of  praying  !  that  is  how 
1  Psalm  cxliii.  10. 


ix.]  ABERGLAUBE  RE-INVADING.  253 

a  poor  ill-endowed  Semite,  belonging  to  the  occipital 
races,  imhelped  by  the  Aryan  genius  and  ignorant 
that  religion  is  a  metaphysical  conception,  talks  reli- 
gion !  and  we  see  what  a  different  thing  he  makes 
of  it. 

But,  finally,  the  original  Semite  fell  more  and  more 
into  the  shade.  The  Aryans  came  to  the  front,  the 
notion  of  religion  being  a  metaphysical  conception 
prevailed.  But  the  doctors  differed  in  their  meta- 
physics ;  and  the  doctors  who  conquered  enshrined 
their  victorious  form  of  metaphysics  in  a  creed,  the 
so-called  Creed  of  St.  Athanasius,  which  is  learned 
science  like  the  Nicene  Creed,  but  learned  science 
which  has  fought  and  got  ruffled  by  fighting,  and  is 
fiercely  dictatorial  now  that  it  has  won ; — learned 
science  with  a  strong  dash  of  violent  and  vindictive  temper. 
Thus  we  have  the  three  creeds  :  the  so-called  Apostles^ 
Creed,  popular  science ;  the  Nicene  Creed,  learned 
science ;  the  Athanasian  Creed,  learned  science  with  / 
a  strong  dash  of  temper.  And  the  two  latter  are/ 
founded  on  the  first,  taking  its  data  just  as 
stand,  but  dressing  them  metaphysically. 

Now  this  first  Creed  is  founded  on  a  supposed 
final  charge  from  Jesus  to  his  apostles  :  "  Go  ye  and 
teach  all  nations,  baptizing  them  in  the  name  of  the 
Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Ghost !" 1  It  explains 
and  expands  what  Jesus  here  told  his  apostles  to 
baptize  the  world  into.  But  we  have  already  re- 
marked the  difference  in  character  between  the 
narrative,  in  the  Gospels,  of  what  happened  before 
1  Matthew  xxviii.  19. 


254  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

Christ's  death  and  the  narrative  of  what  happened 
after  it.  For  all  words  of  Jesus  placed  after  his 
death,  the  internal  evidence  becomes  pre-eminently 
important.  He  may  well  have  said  words  attributed 
to  him,  but  not  then.  So  the  speech  to  Thomas : 
"Because  thou  hast  seen  me  thou  hast  believed; 
blessed  are  they  who  have  not  seen  and  yet  have 
believed ! " l  may  quite  well  have  been  a  speech  of 
Jesus  uttered  on  some  occasion  during  his  life,  and 
then  transferred  to  the  story  of  the  days  after  his 
resurrection  and  made  the  centre  of  this  incident  of 
the  doubt  of  Thomas.  On  the  other  hand,  again, 
the  prophecy  of  the  details  of  Peter's  death2  is 
almost  certainly  an  addition  after  the  event,  because 
it  is  not  at  all  in  the  manner  of  Jesus.  What  is  in 
his  manner,  and  what  he  had  probably  said,  are  the 
words  given  elsewhere :  "  Whither  I  go  thou  canst 
not  follow  me  now,  but  thou  shalt  follow  me  after- 
wards."3 So,  too,  it  is  extremely  improbable  that 
Jesus  should  have  ever  charged  his  apostles  to  "baptize 
all  nations  in  the  name  of  the  Father,  the  Son,  and 
the  Holy  Ghost."  There  is  no  improbability  in  his 
investing  them  with  a  very  high  commission.  He 
may  perfectly  well  have  said  :  "Whosesoever  sins  ye 
remit,  they  are  remitted ;  whosesoever  sins  ye  retain, 
they  are  retained."  4  But  it  is  almost  impossible  he 
can  have  given  this  charge  to  baptize  in  the  name  of 
the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Ghost ;  it  is  by 
far  too  systematic,  and  what  people  are  fond  of  calling 

1  John  xx.  29.  2  John  xxi.  18. 

3  John  xiii.  36.  4  John  xx.  23. 


ix.J  ABEIIGLAUBE  KE-INVADIXG.  255 

an  anachronism.  It  is  not  the  least  like  what  Jesus 
was  in  the  habit  of  saying,  and  it  is  just  like  what 
would  be  attributed  to  him  as  baptism  and  its  formula 
grew  in  importance.  The  genuine  charge  of  Jesus  to 
his  apostles  was,  almost  certainly :  "As  my  Father 
sent  me,  even  so  send  I  you,"1  and  not  this.  So 
that  our  three  creeds,  and  with  them  the  whole  of 
our  so-called  orthodox  theology,  are  founded  upon 
words  which  Jesus  in  all  probability  never  uttered. 

II. 

We  may  leave  all  questions  about  the  Church,  its 
rise,  and  its  organisation,  out  of  sight  altogether. 
Much  as  is  made  of  them,  they  are  comparatively 
unimportant.  Jesus  never  troubled  himself  with 
what  are  called  Church  matters  at  all ;  his  attention 
was  fixed  solely  upon  the  individual.  His  apostles 
did  what  was  necessary,  as  such  matters  came  to 
require  a  practical  notice  and  arrangement ;  but  to 
the  apostles,  too,  they  were  still  quite  secondary.  The 
Church  grew  into  something  quite  different  from  what 
they  or  Jesus  had,  or  could  have  had,  any  thought 
of.  But  this  was  of  no  importance  in  itself ;  and  how 
believers  should  organise  their  society  as  circumstances 
changed,  circumstances  themselves  might  very  well 
decide. 

The  one  important  question  was  and  is,  how 
believers  laid  and  kept  hold  on  the  revelations  con- 
tained in  the  Bible ;  because  for  the  sake  of  these  it 
1  John  xx.  22. 


256  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

confessedly  is,  that  every  church  exists.  Even  the 
apostles,  we  have  seen,  did  not  lay  hold  on  them 
perfectly.  In  their  attachment  to  miracles,  in  the 
prominence  they  gave  to  the  crowning  miracles  of 
Christ's  bodily  resurrection  and  second  advent,  they 
went  aside  from  the  saving  doctrine  of  Jesus  them- 
selves, and  were  sure, — which  was  worse, — to  make 
others  go  aside  from  it  ten  thousand  times  more. 
But  they  were  too  near  to  Jesus  not  to  have  been 
able  to  preserve  the  main  lines  of  his  teaching,  to 
preserve  his  way  of  using  words;  and  they  did,  as 
we  have  shown,  preserve  them. 

But  at  their  death  the  immediate  remembrance  of 
Jesus  faded  away,  and  whatever  Aberglaube  the 
apostles  themselves  had  had  and  sanctioned  was  left 
to  work  without  check.  And,  at  the  same  time,  the 
world  and  society  presented  conditions  constantly  less 
and  less  favourable  to  sane  criticism.  And  it  was 
then,  and  under  these  conditions,  that  the  dogma 
which  is  now  called  orthodox,  and  which  our  dogmatic 
friends  imagine  to  be  purely  a  methodical  arrange- 
ment of  the  admitted  facts  of  Christianity,  grew  up. 
We  have  shown  -from  the  thing  itself,  by  putting  the 
dogma  in  comparison  with  the  genuine  teaching  of 
Jesus,  how  little  it  is  this ;  but  it  is  well  to  make 
clear  to  oneself  also  (for  one  can)  from  the  circum- 
stances of  the  case,  that  it  could  not  be  this. 

For  dogmatic  theology  is,  in  fact,  an  attempt  at 
both  literary  and  scientific  criticism  of  the  highest 
order ;  and  the  age  which  developed  dogma  had 
neither  the  resources  nor  the  faculty  for  such  a 


ix.]  ABERGLAUBE  KE-INVADING.  257 

criticism.  It  is  idle  to  talk  of  the  theological  in- 
stinct, the  analogy  of  faith,  as  if  by  the  mere  occupa- 
tion with  a  limited  subject-matter  one  could  reach 
the  truth  about  it.  It  is  as  if  one  imagined  that  by 
the  mere  study  of  Greek  we  could  reach  the  truth 
about  the  origin  of  Greek  words,  and  dogmatise 
about  them  ;  and  could  appeal  to  our  supposed 
possession,  through  our  labours,  of  the  philological 
instinct,  the  analogy  of  language,  to  make  our  dog- 
matism go  down.  In  general  such  an  instinct, 
whether  theological  or  philological,  will  mean  merely, 
that,  having  accustomed  ourselves  to  look  at  things 
through  a  glass  of  a  certain  colour,  we  see  them  always 
of  that  colour.  What  the  science  of  Bible«criticism, 
like  all  other  science,  needs,  is  a  very  wide  experience 
from  comparative  observation  in  many  directions,  and 
a  very  slowly  acquired  habit  of  mind.  All  studies 
have  the  benefit  of  these  guides,  when  they  exist,  and 
one  isolated  study  can  never  have  the  benefit  of  them 
by  itself.  There  is  a  common  order,  a  general  level, 
an  uniform  possibility,  for  these  things.  As  were 
the  geography,  history,  physiology,  cosmology,  of 
the  men  who  developed  dogma,  so  was  also  their 
faculty  for  a  scientific  Bible-criticism,  such  as  dogma 
pretends  to  be.  Now  we  know  what  their  geography, 
history,  physiology,  cosmology,  were.  Cosmas  Indico- 
pleustes,  a  Christian  navigator  of  Justinian's  time, 
denies  that  the  earth  is  spherical,  and  asserts  it  to  be 
a  flat  surface  with  the  sky  put  over  it  like  a  dish- 
cover.  The  Christian  metaphysics  of  the  same  age, 
applying  the  ideas  of  substance  and  identity  to  what 
VOL.  v.  s 


258  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

the  Bible  says  about  God,  Jesus,  and  the  Holy  Spirit, 
are  on  a  par  with  this  natural  philosophy. 

And  again,  as  one  part  of  their  scientific  Bible- 
criticism,  so  the  rest.  We  have  seen  in  the  Bible- 
writers  themselves  a  quite  uncritical  use  of  the  Old 
Testament  and  of  prophecy.  Now,  does  this  become 
less  in  the  authors  of  our  dogmatic  theology, — a  far 
more  pretentious  effort  of  criticism  than  the  Bible- 
writers  ever  made, — or  does  it  become  greater?  It 
becomes  a  thousand  times  greater.  Not  only  are 
definite  predictions  found  where  they  do  not  exist, — 
as,  for  example,  in  Isaiah's  /  will  restore  thy  judges  as 
at  the  first,1  is  found  a  definite  foretelling  of  the 
Apostles, — but  in  the  whole  Bible  a  secret  allegorical 
sense  is  supposed,  higher  than  the  natural  sense ;  so 
that  Jerome  calls  tracing  the  natural  sense  an  eating 
dust  like  the  serpent,  in  modum  serpentis  terram  come- 
dere.  Therefore,  for  one  expounder,  Isaiah's  prophecy 
against  Egypt :  The  Eternal  rideth  upon  a  light  cloud, 
and  shall  come  into  Egypt?  is  the  flight  into  Egypt  of 
the  Holy  Family,  and  the  light  cloud  is  the  virgin-born 
body  of  Jesus;  for  another,  The  government  shall  be 
upon  his  shoulder ,3  is  Christ's  carrying  upon  his  shoulder 
the  cross ;  for  another,  The  lion  shall  eat  straw  like  the 
oxf  is  the  faithful  and  the  wicked  alike  receiving  the 
body  of  Christ  in  the  Eucharist. 

These  are  the  men,  this  is  the  critical  faculty,  from 
which  our  so-called  orthodox  dogma  proceeded.  The 
worth  of  all  the  productions  of  such  a  critical  faculty 

1  Isaiah  i.  26. 
2  Isaiah  xix.  1.    3  Isaiah  ix.  6.    4  Isaiah  Ixv.  25. 


ix.]  ABERGLAUBE  RE-INVADING.  259 

is  easy  to  estimate,  for  the  worth  is  nearly  uniform. 
When  the  Rabbinical  expounders  interpret :  Woe  unto 
them  tliat  lay  field  to  field  !l  as  a  prophetic  curse  on 
the  accumulation  of  Church  property,  or :  Woe  unto 
tliem  that  rise  up  early  in  the  morning  that  they  may  follow 
strong  drink  / 2  as  a  prediction  of  the  profligacy  of  the 
Church  clergy,  or  :  Woe  unto  them  tJmt  draw  iniquity 
with  cords  of  vanity  /  3  as  God's  malediction  on  Church 
bells,  we  say  at  once  that  such  critics  thus  give  their 
measure  as  interpreters  of  the  true  sense  of  the 
Bible.  The  moment  we  think  seriously  and  fairly, 
we  must  see  that  the  Patristic  interpretations  of 
prophecy  give,  in  like  manner,  their  author's  measure 
as  interpreters  of  the  true  sense  of  the  Bible.  Yet 
this  is  what  the  dogma  of  the  Nicene  and  Athanasian 
Creeds  professes  to  be,  and  must  be  if  it  is  to  be 
worth  anything, — the  true  sense  extracted  from  the  Bible  ; 
for,  "  the  Bible  is  the  record  of  the  whole  revealed 
faith,"  says  Dr.  Newman.  But  we  see  how  impos- 
sible it  is  that  this  true  sense  the  dogma  of  these 
creeds  should  be. 

Therefore  it  is,  that  it  is  useful  to  give  signal 
instances  of  the  futility  of  patristic  and  mediaeval 
criticism ;  not  to  raise  an  idle  laugh,  but  because  our 
whole  dogmatic  theology  has  a  patristic  and  mediaeval 
source,  and  from  the  nullity  of  the  deliverances  of 
this  criticism,  where  it  can  be  brought  manifestly  to 
book,  may  be  inferred  the  nullity  of  its  deliverances, 
where,  from  the  impalpable  and  incognisable  character 
of  the  subjects  treated,  to  bring  it  manifestly  to  book 
1  Isaiah  v.  8.  2  Isaiah  v.  11.  3  Isaiah  v.  18. 


260  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

is  impossible.  In  the  account  of  the  Creation,  in  the 
first  chapter  of  Genesis,  "the  greater  light  to  rule 
the  day  "  is  the  priesthood ;  "  the  lesser  light  to  rule 
the  night," l  borrowing  its  beams  from  the  greater, 
is  the  Holy  Roman  Empire.  When  the  disciples  of 
Jesus  produced  two  swords,  and  Jesus  said :  "It  is 
enough," 2  he  meant,  we  are  told,  the  temporal  and 
the  spiritual  power,  and  that  both  were  necessary 
and  both  at  the  disposal  of  the  Church ;  but  by 
saying  afterwards  to  Peter,  after  he  had  cut  off  the 
ear  of  Malchus  :  "Put  up  thy  sword  into  the  sheath,"3 
he  meant  that  the  Church  was  not  to  wield  the 
temporal  power  itself,  but  to  employ  the  secular 
government  to  wield  it.  Now,  this  is  the  very  same 
force  of  criticism  which  in  the  Athanasian  Creed 
"  arranged  sentence  after  sentence,"  that  doctrine  of 
the  Godhead  of  the  Eternal  Son  for  which  the  Bishops 
of  Winchester  and  Gloucester  are  so  anxious  to  "do 
something." 

The  Schoolmen  themselves  are  but  the  same  false 
criticism  developed,  and  clad  in  an  apparatus  of  logic 
and  system.  In  that  grand  and  instructive  repertory 
founded  by  the  Benedictines,  the  Histoire  Littemire  de 
la  France,  we  read  that  in  the  theological  faculty  of 
the  University  of  Paris,  the  leading  mediaeval  univer- 
sity, it  was  seriously  discussed  whether  Jesus  at  his 
ascension  had  his  clothes  on  or  not.  If  he  had  not, 
did  he  appear  before  his  apostles  naked  1  if  he  had, 
what  became  of  the  clothes  3  Monstrous !  every  one 

1  C! cnesis  i.  16.  2  Luke  xxii.  38. 

3  John  xviii.  11. 


ix.]  ABERGLAUBE  RE-INVADING.  261 

will  say.1  Yes,  but  the  very  same  criticism,  only 
full-blown,  which  produced:  "Neither  confounding 
the  Persons  nor  dividing  the  Substance."  The  very 
same  criticism,  which  originally  treated  terms  as 
scientific  which  were  not  scientific ;  which,  instead  of 
applying  literary  and  historical  criticism  to  the  data 
of  popular  Aberglaube,  took  these  data  just  as  they 

stood  and  merely  dressed  them  scientifically. j 

Catholic  dogma  itself  is  true,  urges,  however,  Dr. 
Newman,  because  intelligent  Catholics  have  dropped 
errors  and  absurdities  like  the  False  Decretals  or  the 
works  of  the  pretended  Dionysius  the  Areopagite,  but 
have  not  dropped  dogma.  This  is  only  saying  that 
men  drop  the  more  palpable  blunder  before  the  less 
palpable.  The  adequate  criticism  of  the  Bible  is 
extremely  difficult,  and  slowly  does  the  "  Zeit-Geist " 
unveil  it.  Meanwhile,  of  the  premature  and  false 
criticism  to  which  we  are  accustomed,  we  drop  the 
evidently  weak  parts  first ;  we  retain  the  rest,  to 
drop  it  gradually  and  piece  by  piece  as  it  loosens  and 
breaks  up.  But  it  is  all  of  one  order,  and  in  time  it 
will  all  go.  Not  the  Athanasian  Creed's  damnatory 
clauses  only,  but  the  whole  Creed ;  not  this  one  Creed 
only,  but  the  three  Creeds, — our  whole  received 
application  of  science,  popular  or  learned,  to  the  Bible. 
For  it  was  an  inadequate  and  false  science,  and  couTcR 
not,  from  the  nature  of  the  case,  be  otherwise.  ^  1 

1  Be  it  observed,  however,  that  there  is  an  honest  scientific 
effort  in  the  Schoolmen,  and  that  to  this  sort  of  thing  one 
really  does  come,  when  one  fairly  sets  oneself  to  treat  miracles 
literally  and  exactly  ;  but  most  of  us  are  content  to  leave  them 
in  a  half  light. 


262  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 


III. 

And  now  we  see  how  much  that  clergyman  deceives 
himself,  who  writes  to  the  Guardian :  "  The  objectors 
to  the  Athanasian  Creed  at  any  rate  admit,  that  its 
doctrinal  portions  are  truly  the  carefully  distilled 
essence  of  the  scattered  intimations  of  Holy  Scripture 
on  the  deep  mysteries  in  question, — priceless  dis- 
coveries made  in  that  field."  When  one  has  travelled 
to  the  Athanasian  Creed  along  the  gradual  line  of 
the  historical  development  of  Christianity,  instead  of 
living  stationary  all  one's  life  with  this  Creed  blocking 
up  the  view,  one  is  really  tempted  to  say,  when  one 
reads  a  deliverance  like  that  of  this  clergyman : 
Sancta  simplidtas  !  It  is  just  because  the  Athanasian 
Creed  pretends  to  be,  in  its  doctrine,  "  the  carefully 
distilled  essence  of  the  scattered  intimations  of  Holy 
Scripture,"  and  is  so  very  far  from  it,  that  it  is  worth- 
less. It  is  "the  carefully  distilled  essence  of  the 
scattered  intimations  of  Holy  Scripture  "  just  as  that 
allegory  of  the  two  swords  was.  It  is  really  a  mixture, 
— for  true  criticism,  as  it  ripens,  it  is  even  a  grotesque 
mixture, — of  learned  pseudo- science  with  popular 
Alerglaube. 

But  it  cannot  be  too  carefully  borne  in  mind  that 
the  real  "  essence  of  Holy  Scripture,"  its  saving  truth, 
is  no  such  criticism  at  all  as  the  so-called  orthodox 
dogma  attempts,  and  attempts  unsuccessfully.  No, 
the  real  essence  of  Scripture  is  a  much  simpler  matter. 
It  is,  for  the  Old  Testament :  To  him  that  ordereth  his 


ix.]  ABERGLAUBE  RE-INVADIXG.  263 

conversation  right  shall  be  shown  the  salvation  of  God  ! — 
and,  for  the  New  Testament :  Follow  Jesus  !  This  is 
Bible -dogma,  as  opposed  to  the  dogma  of  our  for- 
mularies. On  this  Bible -dogma  if  Churches  were 
founded,  and  to  preach  this  Bible-dogma  if  ministers 
were  ordained,  Churches  and  ministers  would  have 
all  the  dogma  to  which  the  Bible  attaches  eternal  life. 
Plain  and  precise  enough  it  is,  in  all  conscience ;  with 
the  advantage  of  being  precisely  right,  whereas  the 
dogma  of  our  formularies  is  precisely  ivrong.  And  if 
any  one  finds  it  too  simple,  let  him  remember  that  its 
hardness  is  practical,  not  speculative.  It  is  a  rule  of 
conduct;  let  him  act  it,  and  he  will  find  it  hard 
enough.  Utinam  per  unum  diem  bene  essemus  conversati 
in  hoc  mundo  f  But  as  a  matter  of  mere  knowledge  it 
is  very  simple,  it  lies  on  the  surface  of  the  Bible  and 
cannot  be  missed. 

And  the  holders  of  ecclesiastical  dogma  have 
always,  we  must  repeat  and  remember,  held  and 
professed  this  Bible-dogma  too.  Their  ecclesiastical 
dogma  may  have  prevented  their  attending  closely 
enough  to  the  Bible-dogma,  may  have  led  them  often 
to  act  false  to  it ;  but  they  have  always  held  it.  The 
method  and  the  secret  of  Jesus  have  been  always 
prized.  The  Catholic  Church  from  the  first  held  aloft 
the  secret  of  Jesus ;  the  monastic  orders  were  founded, 
we  may  say,  in  homage  to  it.  And  from  time  to 
time,  through  the  course  of  ages,  there  have  arisen 
men  who  threw  themselves  on  the  method  and  secret 
of  Jesus  with  extraordinary  force,  with  intuitive  sense 
that  here  was  salvation;  and  who  really  cared  for 


264  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

nothing  else,  though  ecclesiastical  dogma,  too,  they 
professed  to  believe,  and  sincerely  thought  they  did 
believe, — but  their  heart  was  elsewhere.  These  are 
they  who  "  received  the  kingdom  of  God  as  a  little 
child,"  who  perceived  how  simple  a  thing  Christianity 
was,  though  so  inexhaustible,  and  who  are  therefore 
"  the  greatest  in  the  kingdom  of  God."  And  they, 
not  the  theological  doctors,  are  the  true  lights  of  the 
Christian  Church;  not  Augustine,  Luther,  Bossuet, 
Butler,  but  the  nameless  author  of  the  Imitation,  but 
Tauler,  but  St.  Francis  of  Sales,  Wilson  of  Sodor  and 
Man.  Yet  not  only  these  men,  but  the  whole  body  of 
Christian  churches  and  sects  always,  have  all  at  least 
professed  the  method  and  secret  of  Jesus,  and  to  some 
extent  used  them.  And  whenever  these  were  used, 
they  have  borne  their  natural  fruits  of  joy  and  life ; 
and  this  joy  and  this  life  have  been  taken  to  flow 
from  the  ecclesiastical  dogma  held  along  with  them, 
and  to  sanction  and  prove  it.  And  people,  eager  to 
praise  the  bridge  which  carried  them  over  from  death 
to  life,  have  taken  this  dogma  for  the  bridge,  or  part 
of  the  bridge,  that  carried  them  over,  and  have  eagerly 
praised  it.  Thus  religion  has  been  made  to  stand  on 
its  apex  instead  of  its  base.  Righteousness  is  sup- 
ported on  ecclesiastical  dogma,  instead  of  ecclesiastical 
dogma  being  supported  on  righteousness. 

But  in  the  beginning  it  was  not  so.  Because 
righteousness  is  eternal,  necessary,  life-giving,  therefore 
the  mighty  "not  ourselves  which  makes  for  righteous- 
ness "  was  the  Eternal,  Israel's  God ;  was  all-powerful, 
all -merciful;  sends  his  Messiah,  elects  his  people, 


ix.]  ABERGLAUBE  RE-INVADING.  265 

establishes  his  kingdom,  receives  into  everlasting 
habitations.  But  gradually  this  petrifies,  gradually 
it  is  more  and  more  added  to ;  until  at  last,  because 
righteousness  was  originally  perceived  to  be  eternal, 
necessary,  life-giving,  we  find  ourselves  "  worshipping 
One  God  in  Trinity  and  Trinity  in  Unity,  neither 
confounding  the  Persons  nor  dividing  the  Substance." 
And  then  the  original  order  is  reversed.  Because 
there  is  One  God  in  Trinity  and  Trinity  in  Unity, 
who  receives  into  everlasting  habitations,  establishes 
his  kingdom,  elects  his  people,  sends  his  Messiah,  is 
all-merciful,  all-powerful,  Israel's  God,  the  Eternal,— 
therefore  righteousness  is  eternal,  necessary,  life-giving. 
And  shake  the  belief  in  the  One  God  in  Trinity  and 
Trinity  in  Unity,  the  belief  in  righteousness  is  shaken, 
it  is  thought,  also.  Whereas  righteousness  and  the 
God  of  righteousness,  the  God  of  the  Bible,  are  in 
truth  quite  independent  of  the  God  of  ecclesiastical 
dogma,  the  work  of  critics  of  the  Bible, — critics 
understanding  neither  what  they  say  nor  whereof 
they  affirm. 

IV. 

Nor  did  the  Reformation  and  Protestantism  much 
mend  the  work  of  these  critics ;  the  time  was  not  yet 
ripe  for  it.  Protestantism,  nevertheless,  was  a  stren- 
uous and  noble  effort  at  improvement ;  for  it  was  an 
effort  of  return  to  the  "method"  of  Jesus, — that 
leaven  which  never,  since  he  set  it  in  the  world,  has 
ceased  or  can  cease  to  work.  Catholicism,  we  have 
said,  laid  hold  on  the  "secret"  of  Jesus,  and  stren- 


266  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

uously,  however  blindly,  employed  it;  this  is  the 
grandeur  and  the  glory  of  Catholicism.  In  like 
manner  Protestantism  laid  hold  on  his  "method," 
and  strenuously,  however  bHndly,  employed  it;  and 
herein  is  the  greatness  of  Protestantism.  The  pre- 
liminary labour  of  inwardness  and  sincerity  in  the 
conscience  of  each  individual  man,  which  was  the 
method  of  Jesus  and  his  indispensable  discipline  for 
learning  to  employ  his  secret  aright,  had  fallen  too 
much  out  of  view ;  obedience  had  in  a  manner  super- 
seded it.  Protestantism  drew  it  into  light  and 
prominence  again;  was  even,  one  may  say,  over- 
absorbed  by  it,  so  as  to  leave  too  much  out  of  view 
the  "secret."  This,  if  one  would  be  just  both  to 
Catholicism  and  to  Protestantism,  is  the  thing  to  bear 
in  mind : — Protestantism  had  hold  of  Jesus  Christ's 
"  method"  of  inwardness  and  sincerity,  Catholicism  had 
hold  of  his  "  secret "  of  self -renouncement.  The  chief 
word  with  Protestantism  is  tho  word  of  the  method : 
repentance,  conversion  ;  the  chief  word  with  Catholicism 
is  the  word  of  the  secret :  peace,  joy. 

And  since,  though  the  method  and  the  secret  are 
equally  indispensable,  the  secret  may  be  said  to  have 
in  it  more  of  practice  and  conduct,  Catholicism  may 
claim  perhaps  to  have  more  of  religion.  On  the 
other  hand,  Protestantism  has  more  light;  and,  as 
the  method  of  inwardness  and  sincerity,  once  gained, 
is  of  general  application,  and  a  power  for  all  the 
purposes  of  life,  Protestantism,  we  can  see,  has  been 
accompanied  by  most  prosperity.  And  here  is  the 
answer  to  Mr.  Buckle's  famous  parallel  between  Spain 


ix.]  ABERGLAUBE  RE-INVADING.  267 

and  Scotland,  that  parallel  which  every  one  feels  to  be 
a  sophism.  Scotland  has  had,  to  make  her  different 
from  Spain,  the  "  method  "  of  Jesus ;  and  though,  in 
theology,  Scotland  may  have  turned  it  to  no  great 
account,  she  has  found  her  account  in  it  in  almost 
everything  else.  Catholicism,  again,  has  had,  perhaps, 
most  happiness.  When  one  thinks  of  the  bitter  and 
contentious  temper  of  Puritanism, — temper  being, 
nevertheless,  such  a  vast  part  of  conduct, — and  then 
thinks  of  St.  Theresa  and  her  sweetness,  her  never- 
sleeping  hatred  of  "  detraction,"  one  is  tempted  almost 
to  say,  that  there  was  more  of  Jesus  in  St.  Theresa's 
little  finger  than  in  John  Knox's  whole  body.  Pro- 
testantism has  the  method  of  Jesus  with  his  secret 
too  much  left  out  of  mind ;  Catholicism  has  his  secret 
with  his  method  too  much  left  out  of  mind.  Neither 
has  his  unerring  balance,  his  intuition,  his  sweet 
reasonableness.  But  both  have  hold  of  a  great  truth, 
and  get  from  it  a  great  power. 

And  many  of  the  reproaches  cast  by  one  on  the 
other  are  idle.  If  Catholicism  is  reproached  with 
being  indifferent  to  much  that  is  called  civilisation,  it 
must  be  answered  :  So  was  Jesus.  If  Protestantism, 
with  its  private  judgment,  is  accused  of  opening  a 
wide  field  for  individual  fancies  and  mistakes,  it  must 
be  answered :  So  did  Jesus  when  he  introduced  his 
method.  Private  judgment,  "  the  fundamental  and  in- 
sensate doctrine  of  Protestantism"  as  Joseph  de  Maistre 
calls  it,  is  in  truth  but  the  necessary  "  method,"  the 
eternally  incumbent  duty,  imposed  by  Jesus  himself, 
when  he  said  :  "  Judge  not  according  to  the  appear- 


268  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

ance,  but  judge  righteous  judgment."1  "Judge 
righteous  judgment"  is,  however,  the  duty  imposed; 
and  the  duty  is  not,  whatever  many  Protestants  may 
seem  to  think,  fulfilled  if  the  judgment  be  wrong. 
But  the  duty  of  inwardly  judging  is  the  very  entrance 
into  the  way  and  walk  of  Jesus. 

Luther,  then,  made  an  inward  verifying  move- 
ment, the  individual  conscience,  once  more  the  base 
of  operations ;  and  he  was  right.  But  he  did  so  to 
the  following  extent  only.  When  he  found  the 
priest  coming  between  the  individual  believer  and  his 
conscience,  standing  to  him  in  the  stead  of  conscience, 
he  pushed  the  priest  aside  and  brought  the  believer 
face  to  face  with  his  conscience  again.  This  explains, 
of  course,  his  battle  against  the  sale  of  indulgences 
and  other  abuses  of  the  like  kind;  but  it  explains 
also  his  treatment  of  that  cardinal  point  in  the 
Catholic  religious  system,  the  mass.  He  substituted 
for  it,  as  the  cardinal  point  in  the  Protestant  system, 
justification  by  faith.  The  miracle  of  Jesus  Christ's 
atoning  sacrifice,  satisfying  God's  wrath,  and  taking 
off  the  curse  from  mankind,  is  the  foundation  both  of 
the  mass  and  of  the  famous  Lutheran  tenet.  But,  in 
the  mass,  the  priest  makes  the  miracle  over  again  and 
applies  its  benefits  to  the  believer.  In  the  tenet  of 
justification,  the  believer  is  himself  in  contact  with 
the  miracle  of  Christ's  atonement,  and  applies  Christ's 
merits  to  himself.  The  conscience  is  thus  brought 
into  direct  communication  with  Christ's  saving  act; 
but  this  saving  act  is  still  taken, — just  as  popular 
1  John  vii.  24. 


ix. J  AI'.KUGLAUBE  KE-INVADING.  269 

religion  conceived  it,  and  as  formal  theology  adopted 
it  from  popular  religion, — as  a  miracle,  the  miracle  of 
the  Atonement.  This  popular  and  imperfect  con- 
ception of  the  sense  of  Christ's  death,  and  in  general 
the  whole  inadequate  criticism  of  the  Bible  involved 
in  the  Creeds,  underwent  at  the  Eeformation  no 
scrutiny  and  no  change.  Luther's  actual  application, 
therefore,  of  the  "method"  of  Jesus  to  the  inner 
body  of  dogma,  developed  as  we  have  seen,  which  he 
found  regnant,  proceeded  no  farther  than  this. 

And  justification  by  faith,  our  being  saved  by  "giving 
our  hearty  consent  to  Christ's  atoning  work  on  our  be- 
half," by  "  pleading  simply  the  blood  of  the  covenant," 
Luther  made  the  essential  matter  not  only  of  his  own 
religious  system  but  of  the  entire  New  Testament. 
We  must  be  enabled,  he  said,  and  we  are  enabled,  to 
distinguish  among  the  books  of  the  Bible  those  which 
are  the  best;  now,  those  are  the  best  which  show 
Christ,  and  teach  what  would  be  enough  for  us  to 
know  even  if  no  other  parts  of  the  Bible  existed. 
And  this  evangelical  element,  as  it  has  been  called,  this 
fundamental  thought  of  the  Gospel,  is,  for  Luther,  our 
"being  justified  by  the  alone  merits  of  Christ."  This 
is  the  doctrine  of  "passive  or  Christian  righteous- 
ness," as  Luther  is  fond  of  naming  it,  which  consists 
in  "  doing  nothing,  but  simply  knowing  and  believing 
that  Christ  is  gone  to  the  Father  and  we  see  him  no 
more ;  that  he  sits  in  Heaven  at  the  right  hand  of  the 
Father,  not  as  our  judge,  but  made  unto  us  by  God 
wisdom,  righteousness,  sanctification,  and  redemption  ;* 
1  1  Corinthians  i.  30. 


270  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

in  sum,  that  he  is  our  high-priest  making  intercession 
for  us."  Every  one  will  recognise  the  consecrated 
watchwords  of  Protestant  theology. 

Such  is  Luther's  criticism  of  the  New  Testament, 
of  its  fundamental  thought.  And  he  picks  out,  as 
the  kernel  and  marrow  of  the  New  Testament,  the 
Fourth  Gospel  and  the  First  Epistle  by  the  author  of 
this  Gospel,  St.  Paul's  Epistles, — in  especial  those  to 
the  Romans,  Galatians,  and  Ephesians, — and  the  First 
Epistle  of  St.  Peter.  Now,  the  common  complaint 
against  Luther  is  on  the  score  of  his  audacity  in  thus 
venturing  to  make  a  table  of  precedence  for  the 
equally  inspired  books  of  the  New  Testament.  Yet 
in  this  he  was  quite  right,  and  was  but  following  the 
method  of  Jesus,  if  the  good  news  conveyed  in  the 
whole  New  Testament  is,  as  it  is,  something  definite, 
and  all  parts  do  not  convey  it  equally.  Where  he 
was  wrong,  was  in  his  delineation  of  this  fundamental 
thought  of  the  New  Testament,  in  his  description  of 
the  good  news ;  and  few,  probably,  who  have  followed 
us  thus  far,  will  have  difficulty  in  admitting  that  he 
was  wrong  here,  and  quite  wrong.  And  this  has 
been  the  fault  of  Protestantism  generally :  not  its 
presumption  in  interpreting  Scripture  for  itself, — for 
the  Church  interpreted  it  no  better,  and  Jesus  has 
thrown  on  each  individual  the  duty  of  interpreting  it 
for  himself, — but  that  it  has  interpreted  it  wrong,  and 
no  better  than  the  Church.  "Calvinism  has  borne 
ever  an  inflexible  front  to  illusion  and  mendacity," 
says  Mr.  Froude.  Surely  this  is  but  a  nourish  of 
rhetoric ;  for  the  Calvinistic  doctrine  is  in  itself,  like 


IX.]  AllKKGLAUBE  KE-IKVADING.  271 

the  Lutheran  doctrine,  and  like  Catholic  dogma,  a 
false  criticism  of  the  Bible,  an  illusion.  And  the 
Calvinistic  and  Lutheran  doctrines  both  of  them  sin 
in  the  same  way ;  not  by  using  a  method  which,  after 
all,  is  the  method  of  Jesus,  but  by  not  using  the 
method  enough,  by  not  applying  it  to  the  Bible 
thoroughly,  by  keeping  too  much  of  what  the  tradi- 
tions of  men  chose  to  tell  them. 


V. 

The  time  was  not  then  ripe  for  doing  more ;  and 
we,  if  we  can  do  more,  have  the  fulness  of  time  to 
thank  for  it,  not  ourselves.  Yet  it  needs  all  one's 
sense  of  the  not  ourselves  in  these  things,  to  make  us 
understand  how  doctrines,  supposed  to  be  the  essence 
of  the  Bible  by  great  Catholics  and  by  great  Pro- 
testants, should  ever  have  been  supposed  to  be  so, 
and  by  such  men. 

To  take  that  chief  stronghold  of  ecclesiasticism 
and  sacerdotalism,  the  institution  of  the  Eucharist. 
As  Catholics  present  it,  it  makes  the  Church  indis- 
pensable, with  all  her  apparatus  of  an  apostolical 
succession,  an  authorised  priesthood,  a  power  of 
absolution.  Yet,  as  Jesus  founded  it,  it  is  the  most 
anti-ecclesiastical  of  institutions,  pulverising  alike  the 
historic  churches  in  their  beauty  and  the  dissenting 
sects  in  their  unloveliness ; — it  is  the  consecration  of 
absolute  individualism.  "  This  cup  is  the  new  covenant 
in  my  blood  which  is  shed  for  you."1  When  Jesus 
1  Luke  xxii.  20. 


272  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

so  spoke,  what  did  he  mean,  what  was  in  his  mind  ? 
Undoubtedly  these  words  of  the  prophet  Jeremiah : 
"  Behold  the  days  come,  saith  the  Eternal,  that  I  will 
make  a  new  covenant  with  the  house  of  Israel,  not 
according  to  the  covenant  that  I  made  with  their 
fathers,  which  covenant  they  brake ;  but  this  shall  be 
the  covenant  that  I  will  make  with  the  house  of  Israel : 
After  those  days,  saith  the  Eternal,  I  will  put  my  law 
in  their  inward  parts,  and  write  it  in  their  hearts,  and 
they  shall  teach  no  more  every  man  Us  neighbour  and 
every  man  his  brother,  saying :  Know  the  Eternal !  for 
they  shall  all  knoiv  me,  from  the  least  to  the  greatest."1 
No  more  scribes,  no  more  doctors,  no  more  priests  ! 
the  crowning  act  in  the  "  secret "  of  Jesus  seals  at  the 
same  time  his  "  method," — his  method  of  pure  inward- 
ness, individual  responsibility,  personal  religion. 

Take,  again,  the  Protestant  doctrine  of  Justification; 
of  trusting  in  the  alone  merits  of  Christ,  pleading  the 
Blood  of  the  Covenant,  imputed  righteousness.  In 
our  railway  stations  are  hung  up,  as  every  one  knows, 
sheets  of  Bible-texts  to  catch  the  passer's  eye;  and 
very  profitable  admonitions  to  him  they  in  general 
are.  It  is  said  that  the  thought  of  thus  exhibiting 
them  occurred  to  Dr.  Marsh,  a  venerable  leader  of 
the  so-called  Evangelical  party  in  our  Church,  the 
party  which  specially  clings  to  the  special  Protestant 
doctrine  of  justification;  and  that  he  arranged  the 
texts  we  daily  see.  And  there  is  one  which  we  may 
all  remember  to  have  often  seen.  Dr.  Marsh  asks 
the  prophet  Micah's  question:  "Wherewith  shall  I 
1  Jeremiah  xxxi.  31. 


ix.]  ABERGLAUBE  RE-INVADING.  273 

come  before  the  Lord,  and  bow  myself  before  the 
high  God?"1  and  he  answers  it  with  one  short  sen- 
tence from  the  New  Testament :  "  With  the  precious 
blood  of  Christ."  This  is  precisely  the  popular 
Protestant  notion  of  the  Gospel;  and  we  are  all  so 
used  to  it  that  Dr.  Marsh's  application  of  the  text  has 
probably  surprised  no  one.  And  yet,  if  one  thinks  of 
it,  how  astonishing  an  application  it  is  !  For  even  the 
Hebrew  Micah,  some  seven  or  eight  centuries  before 
Christ,  had  seen  that  this  sort  of  gospel,  or  good  news, 
was  none  at  all;  for  even  he  suggests  this  always 
popular  notion  of  atoni.ig  blood  only  to  reject  it,  and 
ends :  "He  hath  showed  thee,  0  man,  what  is  good ; 
and  what  doth  the  Eternal  require  of  thee,  but  to  do 
justly,  and  to  love  mercy,  and  to  walk  humbly  with 
thy  God  ?"  So  that  the  Hebrew  Micah,  nearly  three 
thousand  years  ago,  under  the  old  dispensation,  was  far 
in  advance  of  this  venerable  and  amiable  coryphaeus 
of  our  Evangelical  party  now,  under  the  Christian 
dispensation ! 

Dr.  Marsh  and  his  school  go  wrong,  it  will  be  said, 
through  their  false  criticism  of  the  New  Testament, 
and  we  have  ourselves  admitted  that  the  perfect 
criticism  of  the  New  Testament  is  extremely  difficult. 
True,  the  perfect  criticism;  but  not  such  an  elementary 
criticism  of  it  as  shows  the  gospel  of  Dr.  Marsh  and 
of  our  so-called  Evangelical  Protestants  to  be  a  false 
one.  For  great  as  their  literary  inexperience  is,  and 
unpractised  as  is  their  tact  for  perceiving  the  manner 
in  which  men  use  words  and  what  they  mean  by 

1  Micah  vi.  6. 
VOL.  V.  T 


274  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

them,  one  would  think  they  could  understand  such  a 
plain  caution  against  mistaking  Christ's  death  for  a 
miraculous  atonement  as  St.  Paul  has  actually  given 
them.  For  St.  Paul,  who  so  admirably  seized  the 
secret  of  Jesus,  who  preached  Christ  crucified,1  but 
who  placed  salvation  in  being  able  to  say,  I  am 
crucified  with  Christ  /2 — St.  Paul  warns  us  clearly,  that 
this  word  of  the  cross,  as  he  calls  it,  is  so  simple,  being 
neither  miracle  nor  metaphysics,  that  it  would  be 
thought  foolishness.  The  Jews  want  miracle,  he 
says,  and  the  Greeks  want  metaphysics,  but  I  preach 
Christ  crucified  /3 — that  is,  the  "  secret "  of  Jesus,  as  we 
call  it.  The  Jews  want  miracle/ — that  is  a  warning 
against  Dr.  Marsh's  or  Mr.  Spurgeon's  doctrine, 
against  Evangelical  Protestantism's  phantasmagories 
of  the  "Contract  in  the  Council  of  the  Trinity,"  the 
"Atoning  Blood,"  and  "Imputed  Righteousness." 
The  Greeks  want  metaphysics/ — that  is  a  warning 
against  the  Bishops  of  Winchester  and  Gloucester, 
with  their  Aryan  genius  (if  so  ill-sounding  a  word  as 
Aryan,  spell  it  how  one  may,  can  ever  be  properly 
applied  to  our  bishops,  and  one  ought  not  rather  to 
say  Indo-European),  dressing  the  popular  doctrine 
out  with  fine  speculations  about  the  Godhead  of  the 
Eternal  Son,  his  Consubstantiality  with  the  Father, 
and  so  on.  But  we  preach,  says  St.  Paul,  Christ 
crucified/ — to  Mr.  Spurgeon  and  to  popular  religion 
a  stumbling-block,  to  the  bishops  and  to  learned 
religion  foolishness;  but  to  them  that  are  called,  Christ 
the  power  of  God  and  the  wisdom  of  God.  That  is, 
1  1  Cor.  i.  23.  2  Gal.  ii.  20.  3  1  Cor.  i.  23. 


ix.]  ABERGLAUBE  RE-INVADING.  275 

we  preach  a  doctrine,  not  thaumaturgical  and  not 
speculative,  but  practical  and  experimental ;  a  doctrine 
which  has  no  meaning  except  in  positive  application 
to  conduct,  but  in  this  application  is  inexhaustible. 


VI. 

So  false,  so  astoundingly  false  (thus  one  is  inclined 
to  say  by  the  light  which  the  "  Zeit-Geist "  is  begin- 
ning to  hold  out  over  them)  are  both  popular  and 
learned  science  in  their  criticism  of  the  Bible.  And 
for  the  learned  science  one  feels  no  tenderness,  be- 
cause it  has  gone  wrong  with  a  great  parade  of 
exactitude  and  philosophy ;  whereas  all  it  really  did 
was  to  take  the  magnified  and  non- natural  Man  of 
popular  religion  as  God,  and  to  take  Jesus  as  his 
son,  and  then  to  state  the  relations  between  them 
metaphysically.  No  difficulties  suggested  by  the 
popular  science  of  religion  has  this  learned  science 
ever  removed,  and  it  has  created  plenty  of  its  own. 

But  for  the  popular  science  of  religion  one  has,  or 
ought  to  have,  an  infinite  tenderness.  It  is  the 
spontaneous  work  of  nature.  It  is  the  travail  of  the 
human  mind  to  adapt  to  its  grasp  and  employment 
great  ideas  of  which  it  feels  the  attraction,  but  for 
which,  except  as  given  to  it  by  this  travail,  it  would 
have  been  immature.  The  imperfect  science  of  the 
Bible,  formulated  in  the  so-called  Apostles'  Creed, 
was  the  only  vehicle  by  which,  to  generation  after 
generation  of  men,  the  method  and  secret  of  Jesus 
could  gain  any  access;  and  in  this  sense  we  may 


276  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

even  call  it,  taking  the  point  of  view  of  popular 
theology,  Providential.  And  this  rude  criticism  is 
full  of  poetry,  and  in  this  poetry  we  have  been  all 
nursed.  To  call  it,  as  many  of  our  philosophical 
Liberal  friends  are  fond  of  calling  it,  "a  degrading- 
superstition,"  is  as  untrue  as  it  is  a  poor  compliment 
to  human  nature,  which  produced  this  criticism  and 
used  it.  It  is  an  Aberglaube,  or  extra-belief  and  fairy- 
tale, produced  by  taking  certain  great  names  and  great 
promises  too  literally  and  materially  j  but  it  is  not  a 
degrading  superstition. 

Protestants,  on  their  part,  have  no  difficulty  in 
calling  the  Catholic  doctrine  of  the  mass  "  a  degrad- 
ing superstition."  It  is  indeed  a  rude  and  blind 
criticism  of  Jesus  Christ's  words  :  He  that  eateth  me 
shall  live  ly  me.  But  once  admit  the  miracle  of  the 
"atoning  sacrifice,"  once  move  in  this  order  of  ideas, 
and  what  can  be  more  natural  and  beautiful  than  to 
imagine  this  miracle  every  day  repeated,  Christ 
offered  in  thousands  of  places,  everywhere  the  be- 
liever enabled  to  enact  the  work  of  redemption  and 
unite  himself  with  the  Body  whose  sacrifice  saves 
him  ?  And  the  effect  of  this  belief  has  been  no  more 
degrading  than  the  belief  itself.  The  fourth  book  of 
the  Imitation,  which  treats  of  The  Sacrament  of  the 
Altar,  is  of  later  date  and  lesser  merit  than  the  three 
books  which  precede  it;  but  it  is  worth  while  to 
quote  from  it  a  few  words  for  the  sake  of  the  testi- 
mony they  bear  to  the  practical  operation,  in  many 
cases  at  any  rate,  of  this  belief.  "To  us  in  our  weak- 
ness thou  hast  given,  for  the  refreshment  of  mind 


ix.]  ABERGLAUBE  RE-INVADING.  277 

and  body,  thy  sacred  Body.  The  devout  communi- 
cant thou,  my  God,  raisest  from  the  depth  of  his 
own  dejection  to  the  hope  of  thy  protection,  and 
with  a  hitherto  unknown  grace  renewest  him  and 
enlightenest  him  within ;  so  that  they  who  at  first, 
before  this  Communion,  had  felt  themselves  distressed 
and  affectionless,  after  the  refreshment  of  this  meat 
and  drink  from  heaven  find  themselves  changed  to  a 
new  and  better  man.  For  this  most  high  and  worthy 
Sacrament  is  the  saving  health  of  soul  and  body,  the 
medicine  of  all  spiritual  languor;  "by  it  my  vices  are 
cured,  my  passions  bridled,  temptations  are  conquered  or 
diminished,  a  larger  grace  is  infused,  the  beginnings  of 
virtue  are  made  to  grow,  faith  is  confirmed,  hope  strength- 
ened, and  charity  takes  fire  and  dilates  into  flame."  So 
little  is  the  doctrine  of  the  mass  to  be  hastily  called 
"  a  degrading  superstition,"  either  in  its  character  or 
in  its  working. 

But  it  is  false  !  sternly  breaks  in  the  Evangelical 
Protestant.  0  Evangelical  Protestant,  is  thine  own 
doctrine,  then,  so  true1?  As  the  Eomish  doctrine  of 
the  mass,  the  Eeal  Presence,  is  a  rude  and  blind 
criticism  of  :  He  that  eateth  me  shall  live  by  me ;  *  so 
the  Protestant  tenet  of  justification,  "pleading  the 
blood  of  the  Covenant,"  is  a  rude  and  blind  criticism 
of  :  The  Son  of  Man  came  to  give  his  life  a  ransom  for 
many.2  It  is  a  taking  of  the  words  of  Scripture 
literally  and  unintelligently.  And  our  friends,  the 
philosophical  Liberals,  are  not  slow  to  call  this,  too, 
a  degrading  superstition,  just  as  Protestants  call  the 
1  Jolin  vi.  57.  2  Matthew  xx.  28. 


278  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

doctrine  of  the  mass  a  degrading  superstition.  We 
say,  on  the  contrary,  that  a  degrading  superstition 
neither  the  one  nor  the  other  is.  In  imagining  a  sort 
of  infinitely  magnified  and  improved  Lord  Shaftes- 
bury,  with  a  race  of  vile  offenders  to  deal  with,  whom 
his  natural  goodness  would  incline  him  to  let  off,  only 
his  sense  of  justice  will  not  allow  it ;  then  a  younger 
Lord  Shaftesbury,  on  the  scale  of  his  father  and  very 
dear  to  him,  who  might  live  in  grandeur  and  splendour 
if  he  liked,  but  who  prefers  to  leave  his  home,  to  go 
and  live  among  the  race  of  offenders,  and  to  be  put 
to  an  ignominious  death,  on  condition  that  his  merits 
shall  be  counted  against  their  demerits,  and  that  his 
father's  goodness  shall  be  restrained  no  longer  from 
taking  effect,  but  any  offender  shall  be  admitted  to 
the  benefit  of  it  on  simply  pleading  the  satisfaction 
made  by  the  son; — and  then,  finally,  a  third  Lord 
Shaftesbury,  still  on  the  same  high  scale,  who  keeps 
very  much  in  the  background,  and  works  in  a  very 
occult  manner,  but  very  efficaciously  nevertheless, 
and  who  is  busy  in  applying  everywhere  the  benefits 
of  the  son's  satisfaction,  and  the  father's  goodness ; — 
in  an  imagination,  I  say,  such  as  this,  there  is  nothing 
degrading,  and  this  is  precisely  the  Protestant  story 
of  Justification.  And  how  awe  of  the  first  Lord 
Shaftesbury,  gratitude  and  love  towards  the  second, 
and  earnest  co-operation  with  the  third,  may  fill  and 
rule  men's  hearts  so  as  to  transform  their  conduct,  we 
need  not  go  about  to  show,  for  we  have  all  seen  it 
with  our  eyes.  Therefore  in  the  practical  working  of 
this  tenet  there  is  nothing  degrading ;  any  more  than 


ix.]  ABERGLAUBE  RE-INVADING.  279 

there  is  anything  degrading  in  the  tenet  as  an  ima- 
ginative conception.  And  looking  to  the  infinite 
importance  of  getting  right  conduct, — three-fourths 
of  human  life,  —  established,  and  to  the  inevitable 
anthropomorphism  and  extra-belief  of  men  in  dealing 
with  ideas,  one  might  well  hesitate  to  attack  an 
anthropomorphism  or  an  extra-belief  by  which  men 
helped  themselves  in  conduct,  merely  because  an 
anthropomorphism  or  an  extra -belief  it  is,  so  long 
as  it  served  its  purpose,  so  long  as  it  was  firmly  and 
undoubtingly  held,  and  almost  universally  prevailing. 

But,  after  all,  the  question  sooner  or  later  arises 
in  respect  to  a  matter  taken  for  granted,  like  the 
Catholic  doctrine  of  the  Mass  or  the  Protestant 
doctrine  of  Justification  :  Is  it  sure  ?  can  what  is  here 
assumed  be  verified  ?  And  this  is  the  real  objection 
both  to  the  Catholic  and  to  the  Protestant  doctrine 
as  a  basis  for  conduct; — not  that  it  is  a  degrading 
superstition,  but  that  it  is  not  sure ;  that  it  assumes 
what  cannot  be  verified. 

For  a  long  time  this  objection  occurred  to  scarcely 
anybody.  And  there  are  still,  and  for  a  long  time 
yet  there  will  be,  many  to  whom  it  does  not  occur. 
In  particular,  on  those  "  devout  women "  who  in  the 
history  of  religion  have  at  all  times  played  a  part  in 
many  respects  so  beautiful  but  in  some  respects  so 
mischievous, — on  them,  and  on  a  certain  number  of 
men  like  them,  it  has  and  can  as  yet  have,  so  far  as 
one  can  see,  no  effect  at  all.  Who  that  watches  the 
energumens  during  the  celebration  of  the  Communion 
in  some  Ritualistic  church,  their  gestures  and  be- 


280  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP.  ix. 

haviour,  the  floor  of  the  church  strewn  with  what 
seem  to  be  the  dying  and  the  dead,  progress  to  the 
altar  almost  barred  by  forms  suddenly  dropping  as 
if  they  were  shot  in  battle, — who  that  observes  this 
delighted  adoption  of  vehement  rites,  till  yesterday 
unknown,  adopted  and  practised  now  with  all  that 
absence  of  tact,  measure,  and  correct  perception  in 
things  of  form  and  manner,  all  that  slowness  to  see 
when  they  are  making  themselves  ridiculous,  which 
belongs  to  the  people  of  our  English  race, — who,  I 
say,  that  marks  this  can  doubt,  that  for  a  not  small 
portion  of  the  religious  community,  a  difficulty  to 
the  intelligence  will  for  a  long  time  yet  be  no  diffi- 
culty at  all  ?  With  their  mental  condition  and 
habits,  given  a  story  to  which  their  religious  emotions 
can  attach  themselves,  and  the  famous  Credo  quia 
ineptum  will  hold  good  with  them  still.  To  think 
they  know  what  passed  in  the  Council  of  the  Trinity 
is  not  hard  to  them ;  they  could  easily  think  they 
even  knew  what  were  the  hangings  of  the  Trinity's 
council-chamber. 

Arbitrary  and  unsupported,  however,  as  the  story 
they  have  taken  up  with  may  be,  yet  it  puts  them  in 
connection  with  the  Bible  and  the  religion  of  the 
Bible, — that  is,  with  righteousness  and  with  the 
method  and  secret  of  Jesus.  These  are  so  clear  in 
the  Bible  that  no  one  who  uses  it  can  help  seeing 
them  there ;  and  of  these  they  do  take  for  their  use 
something,  though  on  a  wrong  ground.  But  these, 
so  far  as  they  are  taken  into  use,  are  saving. 


CHAPTEE  X. 


MANY,  however,  and  of  a  much  stronger  and  more 
important  sort,  there  now  are,  who  will  not  thus 
take  on  trust  the  story  which  is  made  the  reason  for 
putting  ourselves  in  connection  with  the  Bible  and 
learning  to  use  its  religion ;  be  it  the  story  of  the 
divine  authority  of  the  Church,  as  in  Catholic  countries, 
or, — as  generally  with  us, — the  story  of  the  three 
Lord  Shaftesburys  standing  on  its  own  merits.  Is 
what  this  story  asserts  true,  they  are  beginning  to 
ask;  can  it  be  verified? — since  experience  proves, 
they  add,  that  whatever  for  man  is  true,  man  can 
verify.  And  certainly  the  fairy-tale  of  the  three 
Lord  Shaftesburys  no  man  can  verify.  They  find 
this  to  be  so,  and  then  they  say :  The  Bible  takes  for 
granted  this  story  and  depends  on  the  truth  of  it; 
what,  then,  can  rational  people  have  to  do  with  the 
Bible  ?  So  they  get  rid,  to  be  sure,  of  a  false  ground 
for  using  the  Bible,  but  they  at  the  same  time  lose 
the  Bible  itself,  and  the  true  religion  of  the  Bible  : 
righteousness,  and  the  method  and  secret  of  Jesus. 
And  those  who  lose  this  are  the  masses,  as  they  are 


282  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

called;  or  rather  they  are  what  is  most  strenuous, 
intelligent,  and  alive  among  the  masses,  and  what 
will  give  the  signal  for  the  rest  to  follow. 

This  is  what  every  one  sees  to  constitute  the  special 
moral  feature  of  our  times  :  the  masses  are  losing  the 
Bible  and  its  religion.  At  the  Eenascence,  many 
cultivated  wits  lost  it ;  but  the  great  solid  mass  of  the 
common  people  kept  it,  and  brought  the  world  back  to 
it  after  a  start  had  seemed  to  be  made  in  quite  another 
direction.  But  now  it  is  the  people  which  is  getting 
detached  from  the  Bible.  The  masses  can  no  longer 
be  relied  on  to  counteract  what  the  cultivated  wits 
are  doing,  and  stubbornly  to  make  clever  men's  ex- 
travagances and  aberrations,  if  about  the  Bible  they 
commit  them,  of  no  avail.  When  our  philosophical 
Liberal  friends  say,  that  by  universal  suffrage,  public 
meetings,  Church-disestablishment,  marrying  one's  de- 
ceased wife's  sister,  secular  schools,  industrial  develop- 
ment, man  can  very  well  live ;  and  that  if  he  studies 
the  writings,  say,  of  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer  into  the 
bargain,  he  will  be  perfect,  he  will  have  "in  modern 
and  congenial  language  the  truisms  common  to  all 
systems  of  morality,"  and  the  Bible  is  become  quite 
old-fashioned  and  superfluous  for  him; — when  our 
philosophical  friends  now  say  this,  the  masses,  far 
from  checking  them,  are  disposed  to  applaud  them  to 
I  the  echo.  Yet  assuredly,  of  conduct,  which  is  more 
than  three-fourths  of  human  life,  the  Bible,  whatever 
people  may  thus  think  and  say,  is  the  great  inspirer ; 
so  that  from  the  great  inspirer  of  more  than  three- 
fourths  of  human  life  the  masses  of  our  society  seem 


x.]  OUR  "MASSES"  AND  THE  BIBLE.          283 

now  to  be  cutting  themselves  off.      This  promises, 
certainly,  if  it  does  not  already  constitute,  a  very  un- 
settled condition  of  things^/  And  the  cause  of  it  lies  / 
in  the  Bible  being  made  to  depend  on  a  story,  or  set  of  " 
asserted  facts,  which  it  is  impossible  to  verify;  and  which 
hard-headed  people,  therefore,  treat  as  either  an  impos- 
ture, or  a  fairy-tale  that  discredits  all  which  is  found  in  s 
connection  with  it. 

II. 

Now  if  we  look  attentively  at  the  story,  or  set  of 
asserted  but  unverified  and  unverifiable  facts,  which 
we  have  summarised  in  popular  language  above,  and 
which  is  alleged  as  the  basis  of  the  Bible,  we  shall  find 
that  the  difficulty  really  lies  all  in  one  point.  The 
whole  difficulty  is  with  the  elder  Lord  Shaftesbury. 
If  lie  could  be  verified,  the  data  we  have  are,  possibly, 
enough  to  warrant  our  admitting  the  truth  of  the  rest 
of  the  story.  It  is  singular  how  few  people  seem  to 
see  this,  though  it  is  really  quite  clear.  The  Bible  is 
supposed  to  assume  a  great  Personal  First  Cause,  who 
thinks  and  loves,  the  moral  and  intelligent  Governor 
of  the  Universe  ;  a  sort  of  elder  Lord  Shaftesbury,  as 
we  call  him,  infinitely  magnified.  This  is  the  God, 
also,  of  natural  religion,  as  people  call  it;  and  this 
supposed  certainty  learned  reasoners  take,  and  render 
it  more  certain  still  by  considerations  of  causality, 
identity,  existence,  and  so  on.  These,  however,  are 
not  found  to  help  the  certainty  much  ;  but  a  certainty 
in  itself  the  Great  Personal  First  Cause,  the  God  of 
both  natural  and  revealed  religion,  is  supposed  to  be. 


284  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

Then,  to  this  given  beginning,  all  that  the  Bible 
delivers  has  to  fit  itself  on.  And  so  arises  the  account 
of  the  God  of  the  Old  Testament,  and  of  Christ  and  of 
the  Holy  Ghost,  and  of  the  incarnation  and  atonement, 
and  of  the  sacraments,  and  of  inspiration,  and  of  the 
church,  and  of  eternal  punishment  and  eternal  bliss, 
as  theology  presents  them.  But  difficulties  strike 
people  in  this  or  that  of  these  doctrines.  The  incar- 
nation seems  incredible  to  one,  the  vicarious  atonement 
to  another,  the  real  presence  to  a  third,  inspiration  to 
a  fourth,  eternal  punishment  to  a  fifth,  and  so  on.  And 
they  set  to  work  to  make  religion  more  pure  and 
rational,  as  they  suppose,  by  pointing  out  that  this  or 
that  of  these  doctrines  is  false,  that  it  must  be  a 
mistake  of  theologians  ;  and  by  interpreting  the  Bible 
so  as  to  show  that  the  doctrine  is  not  really  there. 
The  Unitarians  are,  perhaps,  the  great  people  for  this 
sort  of  partial  and  local  rationalising  of  religion  ;  for 
taking  what  here  and  there  on  the  surface  seems  to 
conflict  most  with  common  sense,  arguing  that  it 
cannot  be  in  the  Bible  and  getting  rid  of  it,  and  pro- 
fessing to  have  thus  relieved  religion  of  its  difficulties. 
And  now,  when  there  is  much  loosening  of  authority 
and  tradition,  much  impatience  of  what  conflicts  with 
common  sense,  the  Unitarians  are  beginning  confi- 
dently to  give  themselves  out  as  the  Church  of  the 
Future. 

But  in  all  this  there  is  in  reality  a  good  deal  of 
what  we  must  call  intellectual  shallowness.  For, 
granted  that  there  are  things  in  a  system  which  are 
puzzling,  yet  they  belong  to  a  system;  and  it  is  childish 


x.]  OUR  "MASSES"  AND  THE  BIBLE.  285 

to  pick  them  out  by  themselves  and  reproach  them 
with  error,  when  you  leave  untouched  the  basis  of  the 
system  where  they  occur,  and  indeed  admit  it  for 
sound  yourself.  The  Unitarians  are  very  loud  about 
the  unreasonableness  and  unscripturalness  of  the 
common  doctrine  of  the  Atonement.  But  in  the 
Socinian  Catechism  it  stands  written:  "  It  is  necessary 
for  salvation  to  know  that  God  is  ;  and  to  know  that 
God  is,  is  to  be  firmly  persuaded  that  there  exists  in 
reality  some  One,  who  has  supreme  dominion  over  all 
things."  Presently  afterwards  it  stands  written,  that 
among  the  testimonies  to  Christ  are  "miracles  very 
great  and  immense,"  miracula  admodum  magna  et 
immensa.  Now,  with  the  One  Supreme  Governor,  and 
miracles,  given  to  start  with,  it  may  fairly  be  urged 
that  that  construction  put  by  common  theology  on  the 
Bible-data,  which  we  call  the  story  of  the  three  Lord 
Shaftesburys,  and  in  which  the  Atonement  fills  a 
prominent  place,  is  the  natural  and  legitimate  con- 
struction to  put  on  them,  and  not  unscriptural  at 
all.  Neither  is  it  unreasonable  ;  in  a  system  of  things, 
that  is,  where  the  Supreme  Governor  and  miracles,  or 
even  where  the  Supreme  Governor  without  miracles, 
are  already  given. 

And  this  is  Butler's  great  argument  in  the  Analogy. 
You  all  concede,  he  says  to  his  deistical  adversaries,  a 
Supreme  Personal  First  Cause,  the  moral  and  intelli- 
gent Governor  of  the  universe ;  this,  you  and  I  both 
agree,  is  the  order  of  nature.  But  you  are  offended 
at  certain  things  in  revelation ;  that  is,  at  things^ 
Butler  means,  like  the  story  of  the  three  Lord  Shaftes- 


286  .     LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

burys  as  theology  collects  it  from  the  Bible.  Well, 
I  will  show  you,  he  says,  that  in  your  and  my  admitted 
system  of  nature  there  are  just  as  great  difficulties  as 
in  the  system  of  revelation.  And  he  does  show  it ; 
and  by  adversaries  such  as  his,  who  grant  what  the 
Deist  or  Socinian  grants,  he  never  has  been  answered, 
he  never  can  be  answered.  The  spear  of  Butler's 
reasoning  will  even  follow  and  transfix  the  Duke  of 
Somerset,  who  finds  so  much  to  condemn  in  the  Bible, 
but  "  retires  into  one  unassailable  fortress, — faith  in 
God." 

The  only  question,  perhaps,  is,  whether  Butler,  as 
an  Anglican  bishop,  puts  an  adequate  construction 
upon  what  Bible-revelation,  this  basis  of  the  Supreme 
Governor  being  supposed,  may  be  allowed  to  be ; 
whether  Catholic  dogma  is  not  the  truer  construction 
to  put  upon  it.  Dr.  Newman  urges,  fairly  enough  : 
Butler  admits,  analogy  is  in  some  sort  violated  by  the 
fact  of  revelation  ;  only,  with  the  precedent  of  natural 
religion  given,  we  have  to  own  that  the  difficulties 
against  revelation  are  not  greater  than  against  this 
precedent,  and  therefore  the  admission  of  this  prece- 
dent of  natural  religion  may  well  be  taken  to  clear 
them.  And  must  we  not  go  farther  in  the  same  way, 
says  Dr.  Newman,  and  own  that  the  precedent  of 
revelation,  too,  may  be  taken  to  cover  more  than 
itself ;  and  that  as,  the  Supreme  Governor  being  given, 
it  is  credible  that  the  Incarnation  is  true,  so,  the 
Incarnation  being  true,  it  is  credible  that  God  should 
not  have  left  the  world  to  itself  after  Christ  and  his 
Apostles  disappeared,  but  should  have  lodged  divine 


x.]  OUR  "  MASSES  "  AND  THE  BIBLE.  287 

insight  in  the  Church  and  its  visible  head  ?  So  pleads 
Dr.  Newman  ;  and  if  it  be  said  that  facts  are  against 
the  infallibility  of  the  Church,  or  that  Scripture  is 
against  it,  yet  to  wide,  immense  things  like  facts  and 
Scripture,  a  turn  may  easily  be  given  which  makes 
them  favour  it ;  and  so  an  endless  field  for  discussion 
is  opened,  and  no  certain  conclusion  is  possible.  For, 
once  launched  on  this  line  of  hypothesis  and  inference, 
with  a  Supreme  Governor  assumed,  and  the  task 
thrown  upon  us  of  making  out  what  he  means  us  to 
infer  and  what  we  may  suppose  him  to  do  and  to 
intend,  one  of  us  may  infer  one  thing  and  another  of 
us  another,  and  neither  can  possibly  prove  himself  to 
be  right  or  his  adversary  to  be  wrong. 

Only,  there  may  come  some  one,  who  says  that  the 
basis  of  all  our  inference,  the  Supreme  Governor,  is 
not  the  order  of  nature,  is  an  assumption,  and  not  a 
fact ;  and  then,  if  this  is  so,  our  whole  superstructure 
falls  to  pieces  like  a  house  of  cards.  And  this  is  just 
what  is  happening  at  present.  The  masses,  with  their 
rude  practical  instinct,  go  straight  to  the  heart  of  the 
matter.  They  are  told  there  is  a  great  Personal  First 
Cause,  who  thinks  and  loves,  the  moral  and  intelligent 
Author  and  Governor  of  the  universe ;  and  that  the 
Bible  and  Bible -righteousness  come  to  us  from  him. 
Now,  they  do  not  begin  by  asking,  with  the  intelligent 
Unitarian,  whether  the  doctrine  of  the  Atonement  is 
worthy  of  this  moral  and  intelligent  Ruler ;  they  begin 
by  asking  what  proof  we  have  of  him  at  all.  More- 
over, they  require  plain  experimental  proof,  such  as 
that  fire  burns  them  if  they  touch  it.  If  they  are  to 


288  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

study  and  obey  the  Bible  because  it  comes  from  the 
Personal  First  Cause  who  is  Governor  of  the  universe, 
they  require  to  be  able  to  ascertain  that  there  is  this 
Governor,  just  as  they  are  able  to  ascertain  that  fire 
burns.  And  if  they  cannot  ascertain  it,  they  will  let 
the  intelligent  Unitarian  perorate  for  ever  about  the 
Atonement  if  he  likes,  but  they  themselves  pitch  the 
whole  Bible  to  the  winds. 

Now,  it  is  remarkable  what  a  resting  on  mere 
probabilities,  or  even  on  less  than  probabilities,  the 
proof  for  religion  comes,  in  the  hands  of  its  great 
apologist,  Butler,  to  be,  even  after  he  has  started  with 
the  assumption  of  his  moral  and  intelligent  Governor. 
And  no  wonder  ;  for  in  the  primary  assumption  itself 
there  is  and  can  be  nothing  experimental  and  clearly 
known.  So  that  of  Christianity,  as  Butler  grounds 
it,  the  natural  criticism  would  really  be  in  these  words 
of  his  own  :  "  Suppositions  are  not  to  be  looked  upon 
as  true,  because  not  incredible."  However,  Butler 
maintains  that  in  matters  of  practice,  such  as  religion, 
this  is  not  so.  In  them  it  is  prudent,  he  says,  to  act 
on  even  a  supposition,  if  it  is  not  incredible.  Even 
the  doubting  about  religion  implies,  he  argues,  that  it 
may  be  true.  Now,  in  matters  of  practice,  we  are 
bound  in  prudence,  he  says,  to  act  upon  what  may  be 
alow  degree  of  evidence;  yes,  "even  though  it  be  so 
low  as  to  leave  the  mind  in  very  great  doubt  ivhat  is  the 
truth." 

Was  there  ever  such  a  way  of  establishing  righteous- 
ness heard  of  1  And  suppose  we  tried  this  with  rude, 
hard,  downright  people,  with  the  masses,  who  for  what 


x.]  OUll  "  MASSES  "  AND  THE  BIBLE.  289 

is  told  them  want  a  plain  experimental  proof,  such  as 
that  fire  will  burn  you  if  you  touch  it.  Whether  in 
prudence  they  ought  to  take  the  Bible  and  religion  on 
a  low  degree  of  evidence  or  not,  it  is  quite  certain 
that  on  this  ground  they  never  will  take  them.  And 
it  is  quite  certain,  moreover,  that  never  on  this  ground 
did  Israel,  from  whom  we  derive  our  religion,  take  it 
himself  or  recommend  it.  He  did  not  take  it  in 
prudence,  because  he  found  at  any  rate  a  low  degree 
of  evidence  for  it ;  he  took  it  in  rapture,  because  he 
found  for  it  an  evidence  irresistible.  But  his  own 
words  are  the  best :  "  Thou,  0  Eternal,  art  the  thing 
that  I  long  for,  thou  art  my  hope  even  from  my  youth ; 
through  thee  have  I  been  holden  up  ever  since  I  was 
born.1  The  statutes  of  the  Eternal  rejoice  the  heart ; 
more  desirable  they  are  than  gold,  sweeter  than  honey  ; 
in  keeping  of  them  there  is  great  reward.2  The  Eternal 
is  my  strength,  my  heart  hath  trusted  in  him  and  I  am 
helped ;  therefore  my  heart  danceth  for  joy,  and  in 
my  song  will  I  praise  him." 3  That  is  why  Israel  took 
his  religion. 

III. 

But  if  Israel  spoke  of  the  Eternal  thus,  it  was,  we 
say,  because  he  had  a  plain  experimental  proof  of  him. 
God  was  to  Israel  neither  an  assumption  nor  a  meta- 
physical idea  ;  he  was  a  power  that  can  be  verified  as 
much  as  the  power  of  fire  to  burn  or  of  bread  to 
nourish :  the  pmver,  not  ourselves,  that  makes  for  righteous- 
ness. And  the  greatness  of  Israel  in  religion,  the 

1  Ps.  Ixxi.  5,  6.          2  Ps.  xix.  8,  10,  11.         3  Ps.  xxviii.  7. 
VOL.  V.  U 


290  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

reason  why  he  is  said  to  have  had  religion  revealed 
to  him,  to  have  been  entrusted  with  the  oracles  of 
God,  is  because  he  had  in  such  extraordinary  force 
and  vividness  the  perception  of  this  power.  And  he 
communicates  it  irresistibly  because  he  feels  it  irre- 
sistibly ;  that  is  why  the  Bible  is  not  as  other  books 
that  inculcate  righteousness.  Israel  speaks  of  his 
intuition  as  still  feeling  it  to  be  an  intuition,  an 
experience  ;  not  as  something  which  others  have 
delivered  to  him,  nor  yet  as  a  piece  of  metaphysical 
notion-building.  Anthropomorphic  he  is,  for  all  men 
are,  and  especially  men  not  endowed  with  the  Aryan 
genius  for  abstraction ;  but  he  does  not  make  arbitrary 
assertions  which  can  never  be  verified,  like  our 
popular  religion,  nor  is  he  ever  pseudo-scientific,  like 
our  learned  religion. 

He  is  credited  with  the  metaphysical  ideas  of  the 
personality  of  God,  of  the  unity  of  God,  and  of 
creation  as  opposed  to  evolution :  ideas  depending, 
the  first  two  of  them,  on  notions  of  essence,  existence, 
and  identity,  the  last  of  them  on  the  notion  of  cause 
and  design.  But  he  is  credited  with  them  falsely. 
All  the  countenance  he  gives  to  the  metaphysical  idea 
of  the  personality  of  God  is  given  by  his  anthropo- 
morphic language,  in  which,  being  a  man  himself,  he 
naturally  speaks  of  the  Power,  with  which  he  is  con- 
cerned, as  a  man  also.  So  he  says  that  Moses  saw 
God's  hinder  parts;1  and  he  gives  just  as  much 
countenance  to  the  scientific  assertion  that  God  has 
hinder  parts,  as  to  the  scientific  assertion  of  God's 
1  Exodus  xxxiii.  23. 


x.  1  OUR  "  MASSES  "  AND  THE  BIBLE.  291 

personality.  That  is,  he  gives  no  countenance  at  all 
to  either.  As  to  his  asserting  the  unity  of  God  the 
case  is  the  same.  He  would  give,  indeed,  his  heart 
and  his  worship  to  no  manifestation  of  power,  except 
of  the  power  which  makes  for  righteousness ;  but  he 
affords  to  the  metaphysical  idea  of  the  unity  of  God 
no  more  countenance  than  this,  and  this  is  none  at 
all.  Then,  lastly,  as  to  the  idea  of  creation.  He 
viewed,  indeed,  all  order  as  depending  on  the  supreme 
order  of  righteousness,  and  all  the  fulness  and  beauty 
of  the  world  as  a  boon  added  to  that  holder  of  the 
greatest  of  all  boons  already,  the  righteous.  This, 
however,  is  as  much  countenance  as  he  gives  to  the 
famous  argument  from  design,  or  to  the  doctrine  of 
creation  as  opposed  to  evolution.  And  it  is  none 
at  all. 

Free  as  is  his  use  of  anthropomorphic  language, 
Israel  had  far  too  keen  a  sense  of  reality  not  to  shrink, 
when  he  comes  anywhere  near  to  the  notion  of  exact 
speaking  about  God,  from  affirmation,  from  professing 
to  know  a  whit  more  than  he  does  know.  "  Lo,  these 
are  parts  of  his  ways,"  he  says  of  what  he  has  ex- 
perienced, "but  how  little  a  portion  is  known  of  him/"1 
And  again  :  "  The  secret  things  belong  unto  the  Eternal 
our  God;  but  the  revealed  things  belong  unto  us  and 
to  our  children  for  ever :  that  we  may  do  all  the 
words  of  this  law."2  How  different  from  our  licence 
of  full  and  particular  statement :  "A  Personal  First 
Cause,  who  thinks  and  loves,  the  moral  and  intelligent 
Governor  of  the  Universe  !  "  Israel  knew,  concerning 
1  Job  xxvi.  14.  2  Deut.  xxix.  29. 


292  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

the  eternal  not  ourselves,  that  it  was  "a  power  that 
made  for  righteousness."  This  was  revealed  to  Israel 
and  his  children,  and  through  them  to  the  world  ;  all 
the  rest  about  the  eternal  not  ourselves  was  this  power's 
own  secret.  And  all  Israel's  language  about  this 
power,  except  that  it  makes  for  righteousness,  is  approxi- 
mate language, — the  language  of  poetry  and  eloquence, 
thrown  out  at  a  vast  object  of  our  consciousness  not 
fully  apprehended  by  it,  but  extending  infinitely 
beyond  it. 

This,  however,  was  "  a  revealed  thing,"  Israel  said, 
to  him  and  to  his  children :  "  the  Eternal  not  ourselves 
that  makes  for  righteousness."  And  now,  then,  let 
us  go  to  the  masses  with  what  Israel  really  did  say, 
instead  of  what  our  popular  and  our  learned  religion 
may  choose  to  make  him  say.  Let  us  announce,  not : 
"  There  rules  a  Great  Personal  First  Cause,  who 
thinks  and  loves,  the  moral  and  intelligent  Governor 
of  the  Universe,  and  therefore  study  your  Bible  and 
learn  to  obey  this ! "  No ;  but  let  us  announce  : 
"  There  rules  an  enduring  Power,  not  ourselves,  which 
makes  for  righteousness,  and  therefore  study  your 
Bible  and  learn  to  obey  this."  For  if  we  announce 
the  other  instead,  and  they  reply:  "First  let  us  verify 
that  there  rules  a  Great  Personal  First  Cause,  who 
thinks  and  loves,  the  moral  and  intelligent  Governor 
of  the  universe," — what  are  we  to  answer?  We 
cannot  answer. 

But  if,  on  the  other  hand,  they  ask :  "  How  are 
we  to  verify  that  there  rules  an  enduring  Power,  not 
ourselves,  which  makes  for  righteousness  ?" — we  may 


x.]  OUR  "  MASSES  "  AND  THE  BIBLE.  293 

answer  at  once  :  "  How  1  why  as  you  verify  that  fire 
burns, — by  experience  !  It  is  so ;  try  it !  you  can  try 
it ;  every  case  of  conduct,  of  that  which  is  more  than 
three-fourths  of  your  own  life  and  of  the  life  of  all 
mankind,  will  prove  it  to  you !  Disbelieve  it,  and 
you  will  find  out  your  mistake,  as  sure  as,  if  you  dis- 
believe that  fire  burns  and  put  your  hand  into  the 
fire,  you  will  find  out  your  mistake  !  Believe  it,  and 
you  will  find  the  benefit  of  it ! "  This  is  the  first 
experience. 

But  then  they  may  go  on,  and  say :  "  Why,  how- 
ever, even  if  there  is  an  enduring  Power,  not  ourselves, 
that  makes  for  righteousness,  should  we  study  the 
Bible  that  we  may  learn  to  obey  him  1 — will  not  other 
teachers  or  books  do  as  well  1 "  And  here  again  the 
answer  is:  "Why? — why,  because  this  Power  is 
revealed  in  Israel  and  the  Bible,  and  not  by  other 
teachers  and  books  !  that  is,  there  is  infinitely  more 
of  him  there,  he  is  plainer  and  easier  to  come  at,  and 
incomparably  more  impressive.  If  you  want  to  know 
plastic  art,  you  go  to  the  Greeks;  if  you  want  to 
know  science,  you  go  to  the  Aryan  genius.  And  why  ? 
Because  they  have  the  specialty  for  these  things ; 
for  making  us  feel  what  they  are  and  giving  us  an 
enthusiasm  for  them.  Well,  and  so  have  Israel  and 
the  Bible  a  specialty  for  righteousness,  for  making  us 
feel  what  it  is  and  giving  us  an  enthusiasm  for  it. 
And  here  again  it  is  experience  that  we  invoke :  try 
it  f  Having  convinced  yourself  that  there  is  an 
enduring  Power,  not  ourselves,  that  makes  for  right- 
eousness, set  yourself  next  to  try  to  learn  more 


294  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

about  this  Power,  and  to  feel  an  enthusiasm  for  it. 
And  to  this  end,  take  a  course  of  the  Bible  first,  and 
then  a  course  of  Benjamin  Franklin,  Horace  Greeley, 
Jeremy  Bentham,  and  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer;  see  which 
has  most  effect,  which  satisfies  you  most,  which  gives 
you  most  moral  force.  Why,  the  Bible  is  of  such 
avail  for  teaching  righteousness,  that  even  to  those 
who  come  to  it  with  all  sorts  of  false  notions  about 
the  God  of  the  Bible,  it  yet  does  teach  righteousness, 
and  fills  them  with  the  love  of  it ;  how  much  more 
those  who  come  to  it  with  a  true  notion  about  the 
God  of  the  Bible  !  And  this  is  the  second  experience. 


IV. 

Now  here,  at  the  beginning  of  things,  is  the  point, 
we  say,  where  to  apply  correction  to  our  current 
theology,  if  we  are  to  bring  the  religion  of  the  Bible 
home  to  the  masses.  It  is  of  no  use  beginning  lower 
down,  and  amending  this  or  that  ramification,  such 
as  the  Atonement,  or  the  Real  Presence,  or  Eternal 
Punishment,  when  the  root  from  which  all  springs  is 
unsound.  Those  whom  it  most  concerns  us  to  teach 
will  never  interest  themselves  at  all  in  our  amended 
religion,  so  long  as  the  whole  thing  appears  to  them 
unsupported  and  in  the  air. 

Yet  that  original  conception  of  God,  on  which  all 
our  religion  is  and  must  be  grounded,  has  been  very 
little  examined,  and  very  few  of  the  controversies 
which  arise  in  religion  go  near  it.  Religious  people 
say  solemnly,  as  if  we  doubted  it,  that  "he  that 


x.]  OUR  "MASSES"  AND  THE  BIBLE.  295 

cometh  to  God  must  believe  that  He  is,  and  that  He 
is  a  rewarder  of  them  that  seek  Him ; "  *  and  that  "  a 
man  who  preaches  that  Jesus  Christ  is  not  God  is 
virtually  out  of  the  pale  of  Christian  communion." 
We  entirely  agree  with  them  ;  but  we  want  to  know 
what  they  mean  by  God.  Now  on  this  matter  the 
state  of  their  thoughts  is,  to  say  the  truth,  extremely 
vague ;  but  what  they  really  do  at  bottom  mean  by 
God  is,  in  general :  the  best  one  knows.  And  this  is 
the  soundest  definition  they  will  ever  attain ;  yet 
scientifically  it  is  not  a  satisfying  definition,  for  clearly 
the  best  one  knows  differs  for  everybody.  So  they  have 
to  be  more  precise ;  and  when  they  collect  themselves 
a  little,  they  find  that  they  mean  by  God  a  magnified 
and  non-natural  man.  But  this,  again,  they  can  hardly 
say  in  so  many  words ;  therefore  at  last,  when  they 
are  pressed,  they  collect  themselves  all  they  can,  and 
make  a  great  effort,  and  out  they  come  with  their 
piece  of  science  :  God  is  a  Great  Personal  First  Cause, 
who  thinks  and  loves,  the  moral  and  intelligent  Governor 
of  the  universe.  But  this  piece  of  science  of  theirs  we 
will  have  nothing  to  say  to,  for  we  account  it  quite 
hollow ;  and  we  say,  and  have  shown  (we  think), 
that  the  Bible,  rightly  read,  will  have  nothing  to  say 
to  it  either.  Yet  the  whole  pinch  of  the  matter  is 
here ;  and  till  we  are  agreed  as  to  what  we  mean  by 
God,  we  can  never,  in  discussing  religious  questions, 
understand  one  another  or  discuss  seriously.  Yet,  as 
we  have  said,  hardly  any  of  the  discussions  which 
arise  in  religion  turn  upon  this  cardinal  point.  This 
1  Hebrews  xi.  6. 


296  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

is  what  cannot  but  strike  one  in  that  torrent  of 
petitiones  principii  (for  so  one  really  must  call  them) 
in  the  shape  of  theological  letters  from  clergymen, 
which  pours  itself  every  week  through  the  columns  of 
the  Guardian.  They  all  employ  the  word  God  with 
such  extraordinary  confidence!  as  if  "a  Great  Per- 
sonal First  Cause,  who  thinks  and  loves,  the  moral 
and  intelligent  Governor  of  the  Universe,"  were  a 
verifiable  fact  given  beyond  all  question ;  and  we  had 
now  only  to  discuss  what  such  a  Being  would  naturally 
think  about  Church  vestments  and  the  use  of  the 
Athanasian  Creed.  But  everything  people  say,  under 
these  conditions,  is  in  truth  quite  in  the  air. 

Even  those  who  have  treated  Israel  and  his  religion 
the  most  philosophically,  seem  not  to  have  enough 
considered  that  so  wonderful  an  effect  must  have  had 
some  cause  to  account  for  it,  other  than  any  which 
they  assign.  Professor  Kuenen,  whose  excellent 
History  of  the  Eeligion  of  Israel l  ought  to  find  an 
English  translator,  suggests  that  the  Hebrew  religion 
was  so  unlike  that  of  any  other  Semitic  people 
because  of  the  simple  and  austere  life  led  by  the 
Beni-Israel  as  nomads  of  the  desert ;  or  because  they 
did  not,  like  other  Semitic  people,  put  a  feminine 
divinity  alongside  of  their  masculine  divinity,  and 
thus  open  the  way  to  all  sorts  of  immorality.  But 
many  other  tribes  have  had  the  simple  and  austere 

1  De  Godsdienst  van  Israel  tot  den  Ondergang  van  den 
Joodschen  Staat  (The  Religion  of  Israel  till  the  Downfall  of  the 
Jewish  State) ;  Haarlem.  An  English  translation  has  now 
appeared. 


x.l  OUR  "MASSES"  AND  THE  BIBLE.  297 

life  of  nomads  of  the  desert,  without  its  bringing 
them  to  the  religion  of  Israel  And,  if  the  Hebrews 
did  not  put  a  feminine  divinity  alongside  of  their 
masculine  divinity,  while  other  Semitic  people  did, 
surely  there  must  have  been  something  to  cause  this 
difference !  and  what  we  want  to  know  is  this  some- 
thing. 

And  to  this  something,  we  say,  the  "Zeit-Geist" 
and  a  prolonged  and  large  experience  of  men's  expres- 
sions, and  how  they  employ  them,  leads  us.  It  was 
because,  while  other  people,  in  the  operation  of  that 
mighty  not  ourselves  which  is  in  us  and  around  us, 
saw  this  thing  and  that  thing  and  many  things,  Israel 
saw  in  it  one  thing  only  : — that  it  made  for  conduct, 
for  righteousness.  And  it  does  ;  and  conduct  is  nearly 
the  whole  of  human  life.  And  hence,  therefore,  the 
extraordinary  reality  and  power  of  Israel's  God  and 
of  Israel's  religion.  And  the  more  we  strictly  limit 
ourselves,  in  attempting  to  give  a  scientific  account  of 
God,  to  Israel's  authentic  intuition  of  him,  and  say 
that  he  is  "the  Eternal  Power,  not  ourselves,  that 
makes  for  righteousness,"  the  more  real  and  profound 
will  Israel's  words  about  God  become  to  us,  for  we 
can  then  verify  his  words  as  we  use  them. 

Eternal,  thou  hast  been  our  refuge  from  one  generation 
to  another  / 1  If  we  define  the  Eternal  to  ourselves, 
"  a  Great  Personal  First  Cause,  who  thinks  and  loves, 
the  moral  and  intelligent  Governor  of  the  universe," 
we  can  never  verify  that  this  has  from  age  to  age 
been  a  refuge  to  men.  But  if  we  define  the  Eternal, 
1  Psalm  xc.  1. 


298  LITERATUKE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

"the  enduring  power,  not  ourselves,  that  makes  for 
righteousness,"  then  we  can  know  and  feel  the  truth 
of  what  we  say  when  we  declare :  Eternal,  tliou  hast 
been  our  refuge  from  one  generation  to  another  /  For  in 
all  the  history  of  man  we  can  verify  it.  Eighteous- 
ness  has  been  salvation;  and  to  verify  the  God  of 
Israel  in  man's  long  history  is  the  most  animating, 
the  most  exalting,  and  the  most  pure  of  delights. 
Blessed  is  the  nation  whose  God  is  the  Eternal/1  is  a 
text,  indeed,  of  which  the  world  offers  to  us  the 
most  inexhaustible  and  the  most  marvellous  illustra- 
tion. 

Nor  is  the  change  here  proposed,  in  itself,  any 
difficult  or  startling  change  in  our  habits  of  religious 
thought,  but  a  very  simple  one.  However,  simple 
as  may  be  this  change  which  is  to  be  made  high  up 
and  at  the  outset,  it  undeniably  governs  everything 
farther  down.  Jesus  is  the  Son  of  God ;  the  Holy 
Spirit  is  the  Spirit  of  truth  that  proceeds  from  God. 
What  God?  "A  Great  Personal  First  Cause,  who 
thinks  and  loves,  the  moral  and  intelligent  Governor 
of  the  Universe?" — to  whom  Jesus  and  the  Holy 
Spirit  are  related  in  the  way  described  in  the  Atha- 
nasian  Creed,  so  that  the  operations  of  the  three 
together  produce  what  the  Westminster  divines  call 
"the  Contract  passed  in  the  Council  of  the  Trinity," 
and  what  we,  for  plainness,  describe  as  the  fairy-tale 
of  the  three  Lord  Shaftesburys  ?  This  is  all  in  the 
air,  but  in  the  air  it  all  hangs  together.  There  stand 
the  Bible  words !  how  you  construe  them  depends 
1  Psalm  xxxiii.  12. 


x.]  OUR  "  MASSES  "  AND  THE  BIBLE.  299 

entirely  on  what  definition  of  God  you  start  with. 
If  Jesus  is  the  Son  of  "  a  Great  Personal  First  Cause," 
then  the  words  of  the  Bible,  literally  taken,  may  well 
enough  lend  themselves  to  a  story  like  that  of  the 
three  Lord  Shaftesburys.  The  story  can  never  be 
verified ;  but  it  may  nevertheless  be  what  the  Bible 
means  to  say,  if  the  Bible  have  started,  as  theology 
starts,  with  the  "  Great  Personal  First  Cause."  And 
the  story  may,  when  it  comes  to  be  examined,  have 
many  minor  difficulties,  have  things  to  baffle  us, 
things  to  shock  us ;  but  still  it  may  be  what  the 
Bible  means  to  say.  However,  the  masses  will  get 
rid  of  all  minor  difficulties  in  the  simplest  manner, 
by  rejecting  the  Bible  altogether  on  account  of  the 
major  difficulty, — its  starting  with  an  assumption 
which  cannot  possibly  be  verified. 

But  suppose  the  Bible  is  discovered,  when  its 
expressions  are  rightly  understood,  to  start  with  an 
assertion  which  can  be  verified  :  the  assertion,  namely, 
not  of  "  a  Great  Personal  First  Cause,"  but  of  "  an 
enduring  Power,  not  ourselves,  that  makes  for  right- 
eousness." Then  by  the  light  of  this  discovery  we 
read  and  understand  all  the  expressions  that  follow. 
Jesus  comes  forth  from  this  enduring  Power  that 
makes  for  righteousness,  is  sent  by  this  power,  is  this 
Power's  son ;  the  Holy  Spirit  proceeds  from  this  same 
Power,  and  so  on. 

Now,  from  the  innumerable  minor  difficulties 
which  attend  the  story  of  the  three  Lord  Shaftes- 
burys, this  right  construction,  put  on  what  the  Bible 
says  of  Jesus,  of  the  Father,  and  of  the  Holy  Spirit, 


300  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

is  free.  But  it  is  free  from  the  major  difficulty  also ; 
for  it  neither  depends  upon  what  is  unverifiable,  nor 
is  it  unverifiable  itself.  That  Jesus  is  the  Son  of  a 
Great  Personal  First  Cause  is  itself  unverifiable  ;  and 
that  there  is  a  Great  Personal  First  Cause  is  unverifi- 
able too.  But  that  there  is  an  enduring  power,  not 
ourselves,  which  makes  for  righteousness,  is  verifiable, 
as  we  have  seen,  by  experience;  and  that  Jesus  is 
the  offspring  of  this  power  is  verifiable  from  experi- 
ence also.  For  God  is  the  author  of  righteousness; 
now,  Jesus  is  the  son  of  God  because  he  gives  the 
method  and  secret  by  which  alone  is  righteousness 
possible.  And  that  he  does  give  this,  we  can  verify, 
again,  from  experience.  It  is  so !  try,  and  you  will 
find  it  to  be  so  !  Try  all  the  ways  to  righteousness 
you  can  think  of,  and  you  will  find  that  no  way 
brings  you  to  it  except  the  way  of  Jesus,  but  that 
this  way  does  bring  you  to  it !  And,  therefore,  as  we 
found  we  could  say  to  the  masses :  "Attempt  to  do 
without  Israel's  God  that  makes  for  righteousness, 
and  you  will  find  out  your  mistake  ! "  so  we  find  we 
can  now  proceed  farther,  and  say :  "  Attempt  to 
reach  righteousness  by  any  way  except  that  of  Jesus, 
and  you  will  find  out  your  mistake ! "  This  is  a 
thing  that  can  prove  itself,  if  it  is  so;  and  it  will 
prove  itself,  because  it  is  so. 

Thus  we  have  the  authority  of  both  Old  and  New 
Testament  placed  on  just  the  same  solid  basis  as  the 
authority  of  the  injunction  to  take  food  and  rest : 
namely,  that  experience  proves  we  cannot  do  without 
them.  And  we  have  neglect  of  the  Bible  punished 


x.]  OUR  "MASSES"  AND  THE  BIBLE  301 

just  as  putting  one's  hand  into  the  fire  is  punished  : 
namely,  by  finding  we  are  the  worse  for  it.  Only,  to 
attend  to  this  experience  about  the  Bible,  needs  more 
steadiness  than  to  attend  to  the  momentary  impres- 
sions of  hunger,  fatigue,  and  pain ;  therefore  it  is 
called  faith,  and  counted  a  virtue.  But  the  appeal  is 
to  experience  in  this  case  just  as  much  as  in  the 
other ;  only  to  experience  of  a  far  deeper  and  greater 
kind. 

V. 

So  there  is  no  doubt  that  we  get  a  much  firmer, 
nay  an  impregnable,  ground  for  the  Bible,  and  for 
recommending  it  to  the  world,  if  we  put  the  construc- 
tion on  it  we  propose.  The  only  question  is :  Is  this  the 
right  construction  to  put  on  it  1  is  it  the  construction 
which  properly  belongs  to  the  Bible1?  And  here, 
again,  our  appeal  is  to  the  same  test  which  we  have 
employed  throughout,  the  only  possible  test  for  man 
to  employ, — the  test  of  reason  and  experience.  Given 
the  Bible-documents,  what,  it  is  inquired,  is  the  right 
construction  to  put  upon  them  ?  Is  it  the  construc- 
tion we  propose?  or  is  it  the  construction  of  the 
theologians,  according  to  which  the  dogmas  of  the 
Trinity,  the  Incarnation,  the  Atonement,  and  so  on, 
are  presupposed  all  through  the  Bible,  are  sometimes 
latent,  sometimes  come  more  visibly  to  the  surface, 
but  are  always  there ;  and  to  them  every  word  in  the 
Bible  has  reference,  plain  or  figured  ? 

Now,  the  Bible  does  not  and  cannot  tell  us  itself, 
in  black  and  white,  what  is  the  right  construction  to 


302  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

put  upon  it;  we  have  to  make  this  out  And  the 
only  possible  way  to  make  it  out, — for  the  dogmatists 
to  make  out  their  construction,  or  for  us  to  make 
out  ours, — is  by  reason  and  experience.  "Even  such 
as  are  readiest,"  says  Hooker  very  well,  "  to  cite  for 
one  thing  five  hundred  sentences  of  Scripture,  what 
warrant  have  they  that  any  one  of  them  doth  mean 
the  thing  for  which  it  is  alleged?"  They  can  have 
none,  he  replies,  but  reasoning  and  collection ;  and 
to  the  same  effect  Butler  says  of  reason,  that  "it  is 
indeed  the  only  faculty  we  have  wherewith  to  judge 
concerning  anything,  even  revelation  itself."  Now  it 
is  simply  from  experience  of  the  human  spirit  and  its 
productions,  from  observing  as  widely  as  we  can  the 
manner  in  which  men  have  thought,  their  way  of 
using  words  and  what  they  mean  by  them,  and  from 
reasoning  upon  this  observation  and  experience, 
that  we  conclude  the  construction  theologians  put 
upon  the  Bible  to  be  false,  and  ours  to  be  the  truer 
one. 

In  the  first  place,  from  Israel's  master-feeling,  the 
feeling  for  righteousness,  the  predominant  sense  that 
men  are,  as  St.  Paul  says,  "  created  unto  good  works 
which  God  hath  prepared  beforehand  that  we  should 
walk  in  them,"1  we  collect  the  origin  of  Israel's 
conception  of  God, — of  that  mighty  "  not  ourselves  " 
which  more  or  less  engages  all  men's  attention, — as 
the  Eternal  Power  that  makes  for  righteousness.  This 
we  do,  because  the  more  we  come  to  know  how  ideas 
and  terms  arise,  and  what  is  their  character,  the  more 
1  Ephesians  ii.  10. 


x.  ]  OUR  "  MASSES  "  AND  THE  BIBLE.  303 

this  explanation  of  Israel's  use  of  the  word  "  God  " 
seems  the  true  and  natural  one.  Again,  the  construc- 
tion we  put  upon  the  doctrine  and  work  of  Jesus  is 
collected  in  the  same  way.  From  the  data  we  have, 
and  from  comparison  of  these  data  with  what  we  have 
besides  of  the  history  of  ideas  and  expressions,  this 
construction  seems  to  us  the  true  and  natural  one. 
The  Gospel-narratives  are  just  that  sort  of  account  of 
such  a  work  and  teaching  as  the  work  and  teaching 
of  Jesus  Christ,  according  to  our  construction  of  it, 
was,  which  would  naturally  have  been  given  by  devoted 
followers  who  did  not  fully  understand  it.  And  under- 
stand it  fully  they  then  could  not,  it  was  so  very  new, 
great,  and  profound ;  only  time  gradually  brings  its 
lines  out  more  clear. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  theologians'  notion  of 
dogmas  presupposed  in  the  Bible,  and  of  a  constant 
latent  reference  to  them,  we  reject,  because  experience 
is  against  it.  The  more  we  know  of  the  history  of 
ideas  and  expressions,  the  more  we  are  convinced  that 
this  account  is  not  and  cannot  be  the  true  one ;  that 
the  theologians  have  credited  the  Bible  with  this  pre- 
supposition of  dogmas  and  this  constant  latent  refer- 
ence to  them,  but  that  they  are  not  really  there. 
"The  Fathers  recognised"  says  Dr.  Newman,  "a 
certain  truth  lying  hid  under  the  tenor  of  the  sacred 
text  as  a  whole,  and  showing  itself  more  or  less  in 
this  verse  or  that,  as  it  might  be.  The  Fathers  might 
have  traditionary  information  of  the  general  drift  of  the 
inspired  text  which  we  have  not."  Born  into  the 
world  twenty  years  later,  and  touched  with  the  breath 


304  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

of  the  "  Zeit-Geist,"  how  would  this  exquisite  and 
delicate  genius  have  been  himself  the  first  to  feel  the 
unsoundness  of  all  this !  that  we  have  heard  the  like 
about  other  books  before,  and  that  it  always  turns  out 
to  be  not  so,  that  the  right  interpretation  of  a  docu- 
ment, such  as  the  Bible,  is  not  in  this  fashion.  Homer's 
poetry  was  the  Bible  of  the  Greeks,  however  strange 
a  one ;  and  just  in  the  same  way  there  grew  up  the 
notion  of  a  mystical  and  inner  sense  in  the  poetry  of 
Homer,  underlying  the  apparent  sense,  but  brought 
to  light  by  the  commentators ;  perhaps,  even,  they 
might  have  traditionary  information  of  the  drift  of 
the  Homeric  poetry  which  we  have  not; — who  knows  1 
But,  once  for  all,  as  our  literary  experience  widens, 
this  notion  of  a  secret  sense  in  Homer  proves  to  be  a 
mere  dream.  So,  too,  is  the  notion  of  a  secret  sense 
in  the  Bible,  and  of  the  Fathers'  disengagement  of  it. 
Demonstration  in  these  matters  is  impossible.  It 
is  a  maintainable  thesis  that  the  allegorising  of  the 
Fathers  is  right,  and  that  this  is  the  true  sense  of  the 
Bible.  It  is  a  maintainable  thesis  that  the  theological 
dogmas  of  the  Trinity,  the  Incarnation,  and  the  Atone- 
ment, underlie  the  whole  Bible.  It  is  a  maintainable 
thesis,  on  the  other  hand,  that  Jesus  was  himself 
immersed  in  the  Alter glaiibe  of  his  nation  and  time, 
and  that  his  disciples  have  reported  him  with  absolute 
fidelity ;  in  this  case  we  should  have,  in  our  estimate 
of  Jesus,  to  make  deductions  for  his  Aberglaube,  and 
to  admire  him  for  the  insight  he  displayed  in  spite  of  it. 
This  thesis,  we  repeat,  or  that  thesis,  or  another  thesis, 
is  maintainable  as  to  the  construction  to  be  put  on  such 


x.]  OUR  "  MASSES  "  AND  THE  BIBLE.  305 

a  document  as  the  Bible.  Absolute  demonstration  is 
impossible,  and  the  only  question  is  :  Does  experience, 
as  it  widens  and  deepens,  make  for  this  or  that  thesis, 
or  make  against  it  1  And  the  great  thing  against  any 
such  thesis  as  either  of  the  two  we  have  just  mentioned 
is,  that  the  more  we  know  of  the  history  of  the  human 
spirit  and  its  deliverances,  the  more  we  have  reason 
to  think  such  a  thesis  improbable,  and  it  loses  hold 
on  our  assent  more  and  more.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  great  thing,  as  we  believe,  in  favour  of  such  a 
construction  as  we  put  upon  the  Bible  is,  that  experi- 
ence, as  it  increases,  constantly  confirms  it ;  and  that, 
though  it  cannot  command  assent,  it  will  be  found  to 
win  assent  more  and  more. 


VOL.  V. 


CHAPTEE  XL 

THE  TRUE   GREATNESS   OF  THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

WIN  assent  in  the  end  the  new  construction  will,  but 
not  at  once  ;  and  there  will  be  a  passage-time  of  con- 
fusion first.  It  is  not  for  nothing,  as  we  have  said, 
that  people  take  short  cuts  and  tell  themselves  fairy- 
tales, because  the  immense  scale  of  the  history  of 
"  bringing  in  everlasting  righteousness  "  is  too  much 
for  their  narrow  minds.  It  is  not  for  nothing  ;  they 
pay  for  it.  It  is  not  for  nothing  that  they  found 
religion  on  prediction  and  miracle,  guarantee  it  by 
preternatural  interventions  and  the  coming  of  the  Son 
of  Man  in  the  clouds,  consummate  it  by  a  banquet 
with  Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob,  in  a  city  shining 
with  gold  and  precious  stones.  They  are  like  people 
who  have  fed  their  minds  on  novels  or  their  stomachs 
on  opium  ;  the  reality  of  things  is  flat  and  insipid  to 
them,  although  it  is  in  truth  far  grander  than  the 
phantasmagorical  world  of  novels  and  of  opium.  But  it 
is  long  before  the  novel-reader  or  the  opium-eater  can 
rid  himself  of  his  bad  habits,  and  brace  his  nerves,  and 
recover  the  tone  of  his  mind  enough  to  perceive  it. 
Distress  and  despair  at  the  loss  of  his  accustomed 
stimulant  are  his  first  sensations. 


CHAP,  xr.]   GREATNESS  OF  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT.     307 

Miracles,  the  mainstay  of  popular  religion,  are 
touched  by  IthuriePs  spear.  They  are  beginning  to 
dissolve ;  but  what  are  we  to  expect  during  the 
process?  Probably,  amongst  many  religious  people, 
vehement  efforts  at  reaction,  a  recrudescence  of  super- 
stition ;  the  passionate  resolve  to  keep  hold  on  what 
is  slipping  away  from  them  by  giving  up  more  and 
more  the  use  of  reason  in  religion,  and  by  resting 
more  and  more  on  authority.  The  Church  of  Rome 
is  the  great  upholder  of  authority  as  against  reason 
in  religion ;  and  it  will  be  strange  if  in  the  coming 
time  of  transition  the  Church  of  Rome  does  not  gain. 

But  for  many  more  than  those  whom  Rome  attracts, 
there  will  be  an  interval,  between  the  time  when  men 
take  the  religion  of  the  Bible  to  be  a  thaumaturgy  and 
the  time  when  they  perceive  it  to  be  something 
different,  in  which  they  will  be  prone  to  throw  aside 
the  religion  of  the  Bible  altogether  as  a  delusion. 
And  this,  again,  will  be  mainly  the  fault, — if  fault 
that  can  be  called  which  was  an  inevitable  error, — of 
the  religious  people  themselves,  who,  from  the  time 
of  the  Apostles  downwards,  have  insisted  upon  it  that 
religion  shall  be  a  thaumaturgy  or  nothing.  For  very 
many,  therefore,  when  it  cannot  be  a  thaumaturgy,  it 
will  be  nothing.  And  very  likely  there  will  come  a 
day  when  there  will  be  less  religion  than  even  now. 
For  the  religion  of  the  Bible  is  so  simple  and  powerful 
that  even  those  who  make  the  Bible  a  thaumaturgy 
get  hold  of  the  religion,  because  they  read  the  Bible  ; 
but,  if  men  do  not  read  the  Bible,  they  cannot  get  hold 
of  it.  And  then  will  be  fulfilled  the  saying  of  the 


308  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

prophet  Amos:  "Behold,  the  days  come,  saith  the 
Eternal,  that  I  will  send  a  famine  in  the  land,  not  a 
famine  of  bread,  nor  a  thirst  for  water,  but  of  hearing 
the  words  of  the  Eternal ;  and  they  shall  wander  from 
sea  to  sea,  and  from  the  north  even  to  the  east  they 
shall  run  to  and  fro  to  seek  the  word  of  the  Eternal, 
and  shall  not  find  it." 1 

Nevertheless,  as  after  this  mournful  prophecy  the 
herdsman  of  Tekoah  goes  on  to  say  :  "  There  shall  yet 
not  the  least  grain  of  Israel  fall  to  the  earth  !" '  To  the 
/Bible  men  will  return ;  and  why  1  Because  they 
I  cannot  do  without  it.  Because  happiness  is  our  being's 
1  end  and  aim,  and  happiness  belongs  to  righteousness, 
and  righteousness  is  revealed  in  the  Bible.  For  this 
simple  reason  men  will  return  to  the  Bible,  just  as  a  man 
who  tried  to  give  up  food,  thinking  it  was  a  vain  thing 
and  he  could  do  without  it,  would  return  to  food ;  or 
a  man  who  tried  to  give  up  sleep,  thinking  it  was  a 
vain  thing  and  he  could  do  without  it,  would  return 
to  sleep.  Then  there  will  come  a  time  of  reconstruc- 
tion ;  and  then,  perhaps,  will  be  the  moment  for 
labours,  like  this  attempt  of  ours,  to  be  found  useful. 
For  though  every  one  must  read  the  Bible  for  himself, 
and  the  perfect  criticism  of  it  is  an  immense  matter, 
and  it  may  be  possible  to  go  much  beyond  what  we 
here  achieve  or  can  achieve,  yet  the  method  for  reading 
the  Bible  we,  as  we  hope  and  believe,  here  give.  And 
although,  in  this  or  that  detail,  the  construction  we 
put  upon  the  Bible  may  be  wrong,  yet  the  main  lines 
of  the  construction  will  be  found,  we  hope  and  believe, 
1  Amos  viii.  11,  12.  2  Amos  ix.  9. 


xi.]  GREATNESS  OF  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT.          309 

right ;  and  the  reader  who  has  the  main  lines  may 
easily  amend  the  details  for  himself. 


II. 

Meanwhile  to  popular  Christianity,  from  those  who 
can  see  its  errors,  is  due  an  indulgence  inexhaustible, 
except  where  limits  are  required  to  it  for  the  good  of 
religion  itself.  Two  considerations  make  this  indul- 
gence right.  One  is,  that  the  language  of  the  Bible 
being, — which  is  the  great  point  a  sound  criticism 
establishes  against  dogmatic  theology, — approximate, 
not  scientific,  in  all  expressions  of  religious  feeling 
approximate  language  is  lawful,  and  indeed  is  all  we 
can  attain  to.  It  cannot  be  adequate,  more  or  less 
proper  it  can  be;  but,  in  general,  approximate  language 
consecrated  by  use  and  religious  feeling  acquires  there- 
from a  propriety  of  its  own.  This  is  the  first  con- 
sideration. The  second  is,  that  on  both  the  "method" 
and  the  "  secret "  of  Jesus  popular  Christianity  in  no 
contemptible  measure  both  can  and  does,  as  we  have 
said,  lay  hold,  in  spite  of  its  inadequate  criticism  of 
the  Bible.  Now,  to  lay  hold  on  the  method  and 
secret  of  Jesus  is  a  very  great  thing ;  an  inadequate 
criticism  of  the  Bible  is  a  comparatively  small  one. 

Certainly  this  consideration  should  govern  our  way 
of  regarding  many  things  in  popular  Christianity  ; — 
its  missions,  for  instance.  The  non-Christian  religions 
are  not  to  the  wise  man  mere  monsters ;  he  knows 
they  have  much  good  and  truth  in  them.  He  knows 
that  Mahometanism,  and  Brahminism,  and  Buddhism, 


310  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

are  not  what  the  missionaries  call  them ;  and  he 
knows,  too,  how  really  unfit  the  missionaries  are  to 
cope  with  them.  For  any  one  who  weighs  the  matter 
well,  the  missionary  in  clerical  coat  and  gaiters  whom 
one  sees  in  wood-cuts  preaching  to  a  group  of  pictur- 
esque Orientals,  is,  from  the  inadequacy  of  his  criticism 
both  of  his  hearers'  religion  and  of  his  own,  and  his 
signal  misunderstanding  of  the  very  Volume  he  holds 
in  his  hand,  a  hardly  less  grotesque  object  in  his 
intellectual  equipment  for  his  task  than  in  his  outward 
attire.  Yet  every  one  allows  that  this  strange  figure 
carries  something  of  what  is  called  European  civilisa- 
tion with  him,  and  a  good  part  of  this  is  due  to 
Christianity.  But  even  the  Christianity  itself  that  he 
preaches,  imbedded  in  a  false  theology  though  it  be, 
cannot  but  contain,  in  a  greater  or  lesser  measure  as  it 
may  happen,  these  three  things  :  the  all-importance 
of  righteousness,  the  method  of  Jesus,  the  secret  of  Jesus. 
No  Christianity  that  is  ever  preached  but  manages  to 
carry  something  of  these  along  with  it. 

And  if  it  carries  them  to  Mahometanism,  they  are 
carried  where  of  the  all-importance  of  righteousness 
there  is  a  knowledge,  but  of  the  method  and  secret 
of  Jesus,  by  which  alone  is  righteousness  possible, 
hardly  any  sense  at  all.  If  it  carries  them  to  Brah- 
minism,  they  are  carried  where  of  the  all-importance 
of  righteousness,  the  foundation  of  the  whole  matter, 
there  is  a  wholly  insufficient  sense ;  and  where  religion 
is,  above  all,  that  metaphysical  conception,  or  meta- 
physical play,  so  dear  to  the  Aryan  genius  and  to  M. 
Emile  Burnouf.  If  it  carries  them  to  Buddhism,  they 


xi.J  GREATNESS  OF  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT.          311 

are  carried  to  a  religion  to  be  saluted  with  respect, 
indeed ;  for  it  has  not  only  the  sense  for  righteous- 
ness, it  has,  even,  it  has  the  secret  of  Jesus.  But  it 
employs  the  secret  ill,  because  greatly  wanting  in  the 
method,  because  utterly  wanting  in  the  sweet  reason- 
ableness, the  unerring  balance,  the  epieikeia.  There- 
fore to  all  whom  it  visits,  the  Christianity  of  our 
missions,  inadequate  as  may  be  its  criticism  of  the 
Bible,  brings  what  may  do  them  good.  And  if  it 
brings  the  Bible  itself,  it  brings  what  may  not  only 
help  the  good  preached,  but  may  also  with  time  dis- 
sipate the  erroneous  criticism  which  accompanies  this 
and  impairs  it.  All  this  is  to  be  said  for  popular 
religion;  and  it  all  makes  in  favour  of  treating 
popular  religion  tenderly,  of  sparing  it  as  much  as 
possible,  of  trusting  to  time  and  indirect  means  to 
transform  it,  rather  than  to  sudden,  violent  changes. 


III. 

Learned  religion,  however,  the  pseudo-science  of 
dogmatic  theology,  merits  no  such  indulgence.  It  is 
a  separable  accretion,  which  never  had  any  business 
to  be  attached  to  Christianity,  never  did  it  any  good, 
and  now  does  it  great  harm,  and  thickens  an  hun- 
dredfold the  religious  confusion  in  which  we  live. 
Attempts  to  adopt  it,  to  put  a  new  sense  into  it,  to 
make  it  plausible,  are  the  most  misspent  labour  in 
the  world.  Certainly  no  religious  reformer  who  tries 
it,  or  has  tried  it,  will  find  his  work  live. 

Nothing  is  more  common,  indeed,  than  for  religious 


312  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

writers,  who  have  a  strong  sense  of  the  genuine  and 
moral  side  of  Christianity,  and  who  much  enlarge  on 
the  pre-eminence  of  this,  to  put  themselves  right,  as 
it  were,  with  dogmatic  theology,  by  a  passing  sentence 
expressing  profound  belief  in  its  dogmas,  though  in 
discussing  them,  it  is  implied,  there  is  little  profit. 
So  Mr.  Erskine  of  Linlathen,  that  unwearying  and 
much-revered  exponent  of  the  moral  side  of  the  Bible : 
"  It  seems  difficult,"  he  says,  "  to  conceive  that  any 
man  should  read  through  the  New  Testament  candidly 
and  attentively,  without  being  convinced  that  the 
doctrine  of  the  Trinity  is  essential  to  and  implied  in 
every  part  of  the  system."  Even  already  many 
readers  of  Mr.  Erskine  feel,  when  they  come  across 
such  a  sentence  as  that,  as  if  they  had  suddenly  taken 
gravel  or  sand  into  their  mouth.  Twenty  years  hence 
this  feeling  will  be  far  stronger ;  the  reader  will  drop 
the  book,  saying  that  certainly  it  can  avail  him  no- 
thing. So,  also,  Bunsen  was  fond  of  maintaining, 
putting  some  peculiar  meaning  of  his  own  into  the 
words,  that  the  whole  of  Christianity  was  in  the 
Lutheran  doctrine  of  justification  by  faith.  Thus, 
too,  the  Bishop  of  Exeter  chooses  to  say  that  his 
main  objection  to  keeping  the  Athanasian  Creed  is, 
that  it  endangers  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  which 
is  so  important.  Mr.  Maurice,  again,  that  pure  and 
devout  spirit, — of  whom,  however,  the  truth  must  at 
last  be  told,  that  in  theology  he  passed  his  life  beat- 
ing the  bush  with  deep  emotion  and  never  starting 
the  hare, — Mr.  Maurice  declared  that  by  reading 
between  the  lines  he  saw  in  the  Thirty-nine  Articles 


XL]  GREATNESS  OF  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT.          313 

and   the   Athanasian   Creed   the    altogether   perfect 
expression  of  the  Christian  faith. 

But  all  this  is  mischievous  as  well  as  vain.  It  is 
vain,  because  it  is  meant  to  conciliate  the  so-called 
orthodox,  and  it  does  not  conciliate  them.  Of  his 
attachment  to  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  the  Bishop 
of  Exeter  may  make  what  protestations  he  will,  Arch- 
deacon Denison  will  still  smell  a  rat  in  them;  and 
the  time  has  passed  when  Bunsen's  Evangelical 
phrases  could  fascinate  the  Evangelicals.  Such  lan- 
guage, however,  does  also  actual  harm,  because  it 
proceeds  from  a  misunderstanding  and  prolongs  it. 
For  it  may  be  well  to  read  between  the  lines  of  a 
man  labouring  with  an  experience  he  cannot  utter ; 
but  to  read  between  the  lines  of  a  notion-work  is 
absurd,  for  it  is  of  the  essence  of  a  notion-work  not 
to  need  it.  And  the  Athanasian  Creed  is  a  notion- 
work,  of  which  the  fault  is  that  its  basis  is  a  chimsera. 
It  is  an  application  of  the  forms  of  Greek  logic  to  a 
chimsera,  its  own  notion  of  the  Trinity,  a  notion  unestab- 
lished,  not  resting  on  observation  and  experience,  but 
assumed  to  be  given  in  Scripture,  yet  not  really  given 
there.  Indeed  the  very  expression,  the  Trinity,  jars 
with  the  whole  idea  and  character  of  Bible-religion. 
But,  lest  the  Unitarian  should  be  unduly  elated  at 
hearing  this,  let  us  hasten  to  add  that  so  too,  and 
just  as  much,  does  the  expression,  a  Great  Personal- 
First  Cause. 

Learned  pseudo-science  applied  to  the  data  of  the 
Bible  is  best  called  plainly  what  it  is, — utter  blunder; 
criticism  of  the  same  order,  and  of  which  the  futility 


314  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

will  one  day  be  just  as  visible,  as  that  criticism  about 
the  two  swords  which  some  way  back  we  quoted. 
To  try  to  tinker  such  criticism  only  makes  matters 
worse.  The  best  way  is  to  throw  it  aside  altogether, 
and  forget  it  as  fast  as  possible.  This  is  what  the 
good  of  religion  demands,  and  what  all  the  enemies 
of  religion  would  most  deprecate.  The  hour  for 
softening  down,  and  explaining  away,  is  passed ;  the 
whole  false  notion-work  has  to  go.  Mild  defences  of 
it  leave  on  the  mind  a  sense  of  the  defender's  hope- 
less inability  to  perceive  our  actual  situation ;  violent 
defences  read,  alas  !  only  like  "a  tale  told  by  an  idiot, 
full  of  sound  and  fury,  signifying  nothing." 


IV. 

But  the  great  work  to  be  done  for  the  better  time 
which  will  arrive,  and  for  the  time  of  transition  which 
will  precede  it,  is  not  a  work  of  destruction,  but  to 
show  that  the  truth  is  really,  as  it  is,  incomparably 
higher,  grander,  more  wide  and  deep-reaching,  than 
the  Aberglaube  and  false  science  which  it  displaces. 

The  propounders  of  "The  Great  Personal  First 
Cause,  who  thinks  and  loves,"  are  too  modest  when 
they  sometimes  say,  taking  their  lesson  from  the 
Bible,  that,  after  all,  man  can  know  next  to  nothing 
of  the  Divine  nature.  They  do  themselves  signal 
injustice ;  they  themselves  know  a  great  deal,  far  too 
much.  They  know  so  much,  that  they  make  of  God 
a  magnified  and  non-natural  man,  a  sort,  as  we  have 
said,  of  infinitely  extended  Lord  Shaftesbury ;  and 


XL]  GREATNESS  OF  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT.          315 

when  this  leads  them  into  difficulties,  and  they  think 
to  escape  from  these  by  saying  that  God's  ways  are 
not  man's  ways,  they  do  not  succeed  in  making  their 
God  cease  to  resemble  a  man,  they  only  make  him  re- 
semble a  man  puzzled.  But  the  truth  is,  that  one  may 
have  a  great  respect  for  Lord  Shaftesbury,  and  yet  be 
permitted,  even  however  much  he  be  magnified,  to 
imagine  something  far  beyond  him.  And  this  is  the 
good  of  such  an  unpretending  definition  of  God  as 
ours :  the  Eternal  Power,  not  ourselves,  that  makes  for 
righteousness; — it  leaves  the  infinite  to  the  imagina- 
tion, and  to  the  gradual  efforts  of  countless  ages  of 
men,  slowly  feeling  after  more  of  it  and  finding  it. 
Ages  and  ages  hence,  no  such  adequate  definition  of 
the  infinite  not  ourselves  will  yet  be  possible,  as  any 
sciolist  of  a  theologian  will  now  pretend  to  rattle  you 
off  in  a  moment.  But  on  one  point  of  the  operation 
of  this  not  ourselves  we  are  clear :  that  it  makes  for 
conduct,  righteousness.  So  far  we  know  God,  that 
he  is  "the  Eternal  that  loveth  righteousness;"  and  the 
farther  we  go  in  righteousness,  the  more  we  shall 
know  him. 

And  as  this  true  and  authentic  God  of  Israel  is  far 
grander  than  the  God  of  popular  religion,  so  is  his 
real  affirmation  of  himself  in  human  affairs  far  grander 
than  that  poor  machinery  of  prediction  and  miracle, 
by  which  popular  religion  imagines  that  he  affirms 
himself.  The  greatness  of  the  scale  on  which  he 
operates  makes  it  hard  for  men  to  follow  him ;  but 
the  greatness  of  the  scale,  too,  makes  the  grandeur  of 
the  operation.  Take  the  Scripture-promises  and  their 


316  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

accomplishment.  As  the  whirlwind  passeth,  so  is  the 
wicked  no  more  ;  "but  the  righteous  is  an  everlasting  founda- 
tion.1 And  again  :  They  shall  call  Jerusalem  the  throne 
of  the  Eternal,  and  all  the  nations  shall  le  gathered  unto 
it.2  It  is  objected  that  this  is  not  fulfilled.  It  is  not 
fulfilled  yet,  because  the  whole  career  of  the  human 
race  has  to  bring  out  its  fulfilment,  and  this  career  is 
still  going  forward.  "Men  are  impatient,  and  for 
precipitating  things,"  says  Butler;  and  Davison, 
whom  on  a  former  occasion  we  quoted  to  differ  from 
him, — Davison,  not  the  least  memorable  of  that  Oriel 
group,  whose  reputation  I,  above  most  people,  am 
bound  to  cherish, — says  with  a  weighty  and  noble 
simplicity  worthy  of  Butler  :  "  Conscience  and  the 
present  constitution  of  things  are  not  corresponding 
terms ;  it  is  conscience  and  the  issue  of  things  which  go 
together."  It  is  so;  and  this  is  what  makes  the 
spectacle  of  human  affairs  so  edifying  and  so  sublime. 
Give  time  enough  for  the  experience,  and  experi- 
mentally and  demonstrably  it  is  true,  that  "  the  path 
of  the  just  is  as  the  shining  light  which  shineth  more 
and  more  unto  the  perfect  day."3  Only  the  limits 
for  the  experience  are  wider  than  people  think.  "  Yet 
a  little  while,  and  the  ungodly  shall  be  clean  gone  !  " 
but  "a  little  while"  according  to  the  scope  and  working 
of  that  mighty  Power  to  which  a  thousand  years  are 
as  one  day.  The  world  goes  on,  nations  and  men 
arrive  and  depart,  with  varying  fortune,  as  it  appears, 
with  time  and  chance  happening  unto  all.  Look  a 

1  Prov.  x.  25.  2  Jer.  iii.  17. 

3  Prov.  iv.  18.  4  Ps.  xxxvii.  10. 


XL]  GREATNESS  OF  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT.          317 

little  deeper,  and  you  will  see  that  one  strain  runs 
through  it  all :  nations  and  men,  whoever  is  ship- 
wrecked, is  shipwrecked  on  conduct.  It  is  the  God  of 
Israel  steadily  and  irresistibly  asserting  himself ;  the 
Eternal  that  loveth  righteousness. 

In  this  sense  we  should  read  the  Hebrew  prophets. 
They  did  not  foresee  and  foretell  curious  coincidences, 
but  they  foresaw  and  foretold  this  inevitable  triumph 
of  righteousness.  First,  they  foretold  it  for  all  the 
men  and  nations  of  their  own  day,  and  especially  for 
those  colossal  unrighteous  kingdoms  of  the  heathen 
world,  which  looked  everlasting;  then,  for  all  time. 
"As  the  whirlwind  passeth,  so  is  the  wicked  no 
more;" — sooner  or  later  it  is,  it  must  be,  so.  Hebrew 
prophecy  is  never  read  aright  until  it  is  read  in  this 
sense,  which  indeed  of  itself  it  cries  out  for ;  it  is,  as 
Davison,  again,  finely  says,  impatient  for  the  larger  scope. 
How  often,  throughout  the  ages,  how  often,  even,  by 
the  Hebrew  prophets  themselves,  has  some  immediate 
visible  interposition  been  looked  for !  "I  looked," 
they  make  God  say,  "  and  there  was  no  man  to  help, 
and  I  wondered  that  there  was  none  to  uphold ; 
therefore  mine  own  arm  brought  salvation  unto  me. 
The  day  of  vengeance  is  in  mine  heart,  the  year  of 
my  redeemed  is  come."1  0  long -delay  ing  arm  of 
might,  will  the  Eternal  never  put  thee  forth,  to  smite 
these  sinners  who  go  on  as  if  righteousness  mattered 
nothing "?  There  is  no  need ;  they  are  smitten.  Down 
they  come,  one  after  another ;  Assyria  falls,  Babylon, 
Greece,  Rome;  they  all  fall  for  want  of  conduct, 

1  Isaiah  Ixiii.  4,  5. 


318  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

righteousness.  "The  heathen  make  much  ado,  and 
the  kingdoms  are  moved ;  but  God  hath  showed  his 
voice,  and  the  earth  doth  melt  away."1  Nay,  but 
Judaea  itself,  the  Holy  Land,  the  land  of  God's  Israel, 
perishes  too, — and  perishes  for  want  of  righteousness. 

Yes,  Israel's  visible  Jerusalem  is  in  ruins ;  and 
how,  then,  shall  men  "call  Jerusalem  the  throne  of 
the  Eternal,  and  all  the  nations  shall  be  gathered 
unto  it  ?"  But  the  true  Israel  was  Israel  the  bringer- 
in  and  defender  of  the  idea  of  conduct,  Israel  the 
lifter-up  to  the  nations  of  the  banner  of  righteousness. 
The  true  Jerusalem  was  the  city  of  this  ideal  Israel. 
And  this  ideal  Israel  could  not  and  cannot  perish,  so 
long  as  its  idea,  righteousness  and  its  necessity,  does 
not  perish,  but  prevails.  Now,  that  it  does  prevail, 
the  whole  course  of  the  world  proves,  and  the  fall  of 
the  actual  Israel  is  of  itself  witness.  Thus,  therefore, 
the  ideal  Israel  for  ever  lives  and  prospers ;  and  its 
city  is  the  city  whereto  all  nations  and  languages, 
after  endless  trials  of  everything  else  except  conduct, 
after  incessantly  attempting  to  do  without  righteous- 
ness and  failing,  are  slowly  but  surely  gathered. 

To  this  Israel  are  the  promises,  and  to  this  Israel 
they  are  fulfilled.  "The  nation  and  kingdom  that 
will  not  serve  thee  shall  perish,  yea,  those  nations 
shall  be  utterly  wasted."2  It  is  so;  since  all  history 
is  an  accumulation  of  experiences  that  what  men  and 
nations  fall  by  is  want  of  conduct.  To  call  it  by  this 
plain  name  is  often  not  amiss,  for  the  thing  is  never 
more  great  than  when  it  is  looked  at  in  its  simplicity 
1  Psalm  xlvi.  6.  2  Isaiah  Ix.  12. 


XT.]  GREATNESS  OF  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT.          319 

and  reality.  Yet  the  true  name  to  touch  the  soul  is 
the  name  Israel  gave :  Righteousness.  And  to  Israel, 
as  the  representative  of  this  imperishable  and  saving 
idea  of  righteousness,  all  the  promises  come  true,  and 
the  language  of  none  of  them  is  pitched  too  high. 
The  Eternal,  Israel  says  truly,  is  on  my  side.1  "  Fear 
not,  thou  worm  Jacob,  and  thou  handful  Israel !  I 
will  help  thee,  saith  the  Eternal.  Behold,  I  have 
graven  thee  upon  the  palms  of  my  hands,  thy  walls 
are  continually  before  me.  The  Eternal  hath  chosen 
Zion ;  O  pray  for  the  peace  of  Jerusalem !  they  shall 
prosper  that  love  thee.  Men  shall  call  Jerusalem 
the  throne  of  the  Eternal,  and  all  the  nations  shall  be 
gathered  unto  it.  And  he  will  destroy  in  this  moun- 
tain the  face  of  the  covering  cast  over  all  people,  and 
the  veil  that  is  spread  over  all  nations;  he  will  swallow 
up  death  in  victory.  And  it  shall  be  said  in  that 
day :  Lo,  this  is  our  God !  this  is  the  Eternal,  we 
have  waited  for  him,  we  will  be  glad  and  rejoice  in 
his  salvation."2 

V. 

And  if  Assyria  and  Babylon  seem  too  remote,  let 
us  look  nearer  home  for  testimonies  to  the  inexhaust- 
ible grandeur  and  significance  of  the  Old  Testament 
revelation,  according  to  that  construction  which  we 
here  put  upon  it.  Every  educated  man  loves  Greece, 
owes  gratitude  to  Greece.  Greece  was  the  lifter-up  to 
the  nations  of  the  banner  of  art  and  science,  as  Israel 

1  Psalm  cxviii.  6. 

2  Is.  xli.  14;  xlix.  16;  Ps.  cxxxii.  13;  cxxii.  6;  Jer.  iii.  17  ; 
Is.  xxv.  7,  8,  9. 


320  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

was  the  lifter -up  of  the  banner  of  righteousness. 
Now,  the  world  cannot  do  without  art  and  science. 
And  the  lifter-up  of  the  banner  of  art  and  science 
was  naturally  much  occupied  with  them,  and  conduct 
was  a  homely  plain  matter."  Not  enough  heed,  there- 
fore, was  given  by  him  to  conduct.  But  conduct, 
plain  matter  as  it  is,  is  six-eighths  of  life,  while  art 
and  science  are  only  two-eighths.  And  this  brilliant 
Greece  perished  for  lack  of  attention  enough  to 
conduct;  for  want  of  conduct,  steadiness,  character. 
And  there  is  this  difference  between  Greece  and 
Judaea:  both  were  custodians  of  a  revelation,  and 
both  perished ;  but  Greece  perished  of  over-fidelity  to 
her  revelation,  and  Judafia  perished  of  under-fidLGlity  to 
hers.  Nay,  and  the  victorious  revelation  now,  even 
now, — in  this  age  when  more  of  beauty  and  more  of 
knowledge  are  so  much  needed,  and  knowledge,  at 
any  rate,  is  so  highly  esteemed, — the  revelation  which 
rules  the  world  even  now,  is  not  Greece's  revelation, 
but  Judaea's  ;  not  the  pre-eminence  of  art  and  science, 
but  the  pre-eminence  of  righteousness. 

It  reminds  one  of  what  is  recorded  of  Abraham, 
before  the  true  inheritor  of  the  promises,  the  humble 
and  homely  Isaac,  was  born.  Abraham  looked  upon 
the  vigorous,  bold,  brilliant  young  Ishmael,  and  said 
appealingly  to  God :  "  Oh  that  Ishmael  might  live 
before  thee!"1  But  it  cannot  be;  the  promises  are 
to  conduct,  conduct  only.  And  so,  again,  we  in  like 
manner  behold,  long  after  Greece  has  perished,  a 
brilliant  successor  of  Greece,  the  Eenascence,  present 
1  Genesis  xvii.  18. 


XL]  GREATNESS  OF  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT.          321 

herself  with  high  hopes.  The  preachers  of  righteous- 
ness, blunderers  as  they  often  were,  had  for  centuries 
had  it  all  their  own  way.  Art  and  science  had  been 
forgotten,  men's  minds  had  been  enslaved,  their  bodies 
macerated.  But  the  gloomy,  oppressive  dream  is  now 
over.  "Let  us  return  to  Nature /"  And  all  the  world 
salutes  with  pride  and  joy  the  Eenascence,  and  prays 
to  Heaven :  "  Oh  that  Ishmael  might  live  before  thee ! " 
Surely  the  future  belongs  to  this  brilliant  new-comer, 
with  his  animating  maxim :  Let  us  return  to  Nature  ! 
Ah,  what  pitfalls  are  in  that  word  Nature  /  Let  us 
return  to  art  and  science,  which  are  a  part  of 
Nature;  yes.  Let  us  return  to  a  proper  conception 
of  righteousness,  to  a  true  use  of  the  method  and 
secret  of  Jesus,  which  have  been  all  denaturalised ; 
yes.  But,  "Let  us  return  to  Nature /" — do  you  mean 
that  we  are  to  give  full  swing  to  our  inclinations,  to 
throw  the  reins  on  the  neck  of  our  senses,  of  those 
sirens  whom  Paul  the  Israelite  called  "  the  deceitful 
lusts,"1  and  of  following  whom  he  said  "Let  no  man 
beguile  you  with  vain  words,  for  because  of  these 
things  cometh  the  wrath  of  God  upon  the  children  of 
disobedience?"2  Do  you  mean  that  conduct  is  not 
three-fourths  of  life,  and  that  the  secret  of  Jesus  has 
no  use  1  And  the  Renascence  did  mean  this,  or  half- 
meant  this ;  so  disgusted  was  it  with  the  cowled  and 
tonsured  Middle  Age.  And  it  died  of  it,  this  brilliant 
Ishmael  died  of  it!  it  died  of  provoking  a  collision 
with  the  homely  Isaac,  righteousness.  On  the  Conti- 
nent came  the  Catholic  reaction ;  in  England,  as  we 

1  Eph.  iv.  22.  3  Eph.  v.  6. 

VOL.  V.  Y 


322  LITEKATUBE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

have  said  elsewhere,  "the  great  middle  class,  the 
kernel  of  the  nation,  entered  the  prison  of  Puri- 
tanism, and  had  the  key  turned  upon  its  spirit  there 
for  two  hundred  years."  After  too  much  glorification 
of  art,  science,  and  culture,  too  little ;  after  Rabelais, 
George  Fox. 

France,  again,  how  often  and  how  impetuously  for 
France  has  the  prayer  gone  up  to  Heaven  :  "Oh  that 
Ishmael  might  live  before  thee!"  It  is  not  enough 
perceived  what  it  is  which  gives  to  France  her  attrac- 
tiveness for  everybody,  and  her  success,  and  her 
repeated  disasters.  France  is  I'homme  sensuel  moyen, 
the  average  sensual  man ;  Paris  is  the  city  of  I'homme 
sensuel  moyen.  This  has  an  attraction  for  all  of  us. 
We  all  have  in  us  this  homme  sensuel,  the  man  of  the 
"wishes  of  the  flesh  and  of  the  current  thoughts;" 
but  we  develop  him  under  checks  and  doubts,  and 
nusystematically  and  often  grossly.  France,  on  the 
other  hand,  develops  him  confidently  and  harmon- 
iously. She  makes  the  most  of  him,  because  she 
knows  what  she  is  about  and  keeps  in  a  mean,  as  her 
climate  is  in  a  mean,  and  her  situation.  She  does  not 
develop  him  with  madness,  into  a  monstrosity,  as  the 
Italy  of  the  Eenascence  did;  she  develops  him  equably 
and  systematically.  And  hence  she  does  not  shock 
people  with  him  but  attracts  them,  she  names  herself 
the  France  of  tact  and  measure,  good  sense,  logic.  In 
a  way,  this  is  true.  As  she  develops  the  senses,  the 
apparent  self,  all  round,  in  good  faith,  without  mis- 
givings, without  violence,  she  has  much  reasonableness 
and  clearness  in  all  her  notions  and  arrangements  ;  a 


XL]  GREATNESS  OF  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT.  '.W 

sort  of  balance  even  in  conduct;  as  much  art  and 
science,  and  it  is  not  a  little,  as  goes  with  the  ideal  of 
Vliomme  sensuel  moyen.  And  from  her  ideal  of  the 
average  sensual  man  France  has  deduced  her  famous 
gospel  of  the  Eights  of  Man,  which  she  preaches  with 
such  an  infinite  crowing  and  self-admiration.  France 
takes  "the  wishes  of  the  flesh  and  of  the  current 
thoughts  "  for  a  man's  rights ;  and  human  happiness, 
and  the  perfection  of  society,  she  places  in  everybody's 
being  enabled  to  gratify  these  wishes,  to  get  these 
rights,  as  equally  as  possible  and  as  much  as  possible. 
In  Italy,  as  in  ancient  Greece,  the  satisfying  develop- 
ment of  this  ideal  of  the  average  sensual  man  is  broken 
by  the  imperious  ideal  of  art  and  science  disparaging 
it ;  in  the  Germanic  nations,  by  the  ideal  of  morality 
disparaging  it.  Still,  whenever,  as  often  happens,  the 
pursuers  of  these  higher  ideals  are  a  little  weary  of 
them  or  unsuccessful  with  them,  they  turn  with  a  sort 
of  envy  and  admiration  to  the  ideal  set  up  by  France, 
— so  positive,  intelligible,  and  up  to  a  certain  point 
satisfying.  They  are  inclined  to  try  it  instead  of 
their  own,  although  they  can  never  bring  themselves 
to  try  it  thoroughly,  and  therefore  well.  But  this 
explains  the  great  attraction  France  exercises  upon 
the  world.  All  of  us  feel,  at  some  time  or  other  in 
our  lives,  a  hankering  after  the  French  ideal,  a  dis- 
position to  try  it.  More  particularly  is  this  true  of 
the  Latin  nations ;  and  therefore  everywhere,  among 
these  nations,  you  see  the  old  indigenous  type  of  city 
disappearing,  and  the  type  of  modern  Paris,  the  city 
of  rhomme  sensuel  moyen,  replacing  it.  La  BoMnie,  the 


324  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

ideal,  free,  pleasurable  life  of  Paris,  is  a  kind  of 
Paradise  of  Ishmaels.  And  all  this  assent  from  every 
quarter,  and  the  clearness  and  apparent  reasonableness 
of  their  ideal  besides,  fill  the  French  with  a  kind  of 
ecstatic  faith  in  it,  a  zeal  almost  fanatical  for  pro- 
pagating what  they  call  French  civilisation  everywhere, 
for  establishing  its  predominance,  and  their  own  pre- 
dominance along  with  it,  as  of  the  people  entrusted 
with  an  oracle  so  showy  and  taking.  Oh  that  Ishmael 
might  live  before  thee  !  Since  everybody  has  something 
which  conspires  with  this  Ishmael,  his  success,  again 
and  again,  seems  to  be  certain.  Again  and  again  he 
seems  drawing  near  to  a  worldwide  success,  nay,  to 
have  succeeded  ; — but  always,  at  this  point,  disaster 
overtakes  him,  he  signally  breaks  down.  At  this 
crowning  moment,  when  all  seems  triumphant  with 
him,  comes  what  the  Bible  calls  a  crisis,  or  judgment. 
Now  is  the  judgment  of  this  world  /  now  shall  the  prince 
of  this  world  "be,  cast  out/1  Cast  out  he  is,  and  always 
must  be,  because  his  ideal,  which  is  also  that  of  France 
in  general,  however  she  may  have  noble  spirits  who 
contend  against  it  and  seek  a  better,  is  after  all  a 
false  one.  Plausible  and  attractive  as  it  may  be,  the 
constitution  of  things  turns  out  to  be  somehow  or 
other  against  it.  And  why  1  Because  the  free 
development  of  our  senses  all  round,  of  our  apparent 
self,  has  to  undergo  a  profound  modification  from  the 
law  of  our  higher  real  self,  the  law  of  righteousness  ; 
because  he,  whose  ideal  is  the  free  development  of  the 
senses  all  round,  serves  the  senses,  is  a  servant.  But : 
1  John  xii.  31. 


XL]  GREATNESS  OF  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT.          325 

The  servant  abidetli  not  in  the  house  for  ever ;  the  son 
dbidetli  for  ever} 

Is  it  possible  to  imagine  a  grander  testimony  to 
the  truth  of  the  revelation  committed  to  Israel? 
Wh  at  miracle  of  making  an  iron  axe-head  float  on 
water,  what  successful  prediction  that  a  thing  should 
happen  just  so  many  years  and  months  and  days 
hence,  could  be  really  half  so  impressive  ? 

VI. 

So  that  the  whole  history  of  the  world  to  this  day 
is  in  truth  one  continual  establishing  of  the  Old 
Testament  revelation  :  "  0  ye  that  love  the  Eternal,  see, 
that  ye  hate  the  thing  that  is  evil!  to  him  that  orderethhis 
conversation  right,  shall  be  shown  the  salvation  of  God."2 
And  whether  we  consider  this  revelation  in  respect  to 
human  affairs  at  large,  or  in  respect  to  individual 
happiness,  in  either  case  its  importance  is  so  immense, 
that  the  people  to  whom  it  was  given,  and  whose 
record  is  in  the  Bible,  deserve  fully  to  be  singled  out 
as  the  Bible  singles  them.  "  Behold,  darkness  doth 
cover  the  earth,  and  gross  darkness  the  nations ;  but 
the  Eternal  shall  arise  upon  thee,  and  his  glory  shall 
be  seen  upon  thee !  "3  For,  while  other  nations  had  the 
misleading  idea  that  this  or  that,  other  than  righteous- 
ness, is  saving,  and  it  is  not ;  that  this  or  that,  other 
than  conduct,  brings  happiness,  and  it  does  not; 
Israel  had  the  true  idea  that  righteousness  is  saving, 
that  to  conduct  belongs  happiness. 

1  John  viii.  35.          2  ps.  xcvii.  10  ;  1.  23.          3  Is.  Ix.  2. 


326  LITERATUKE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

Nor  let  it  be  said  that  other  nations,  too,  had  at 
least  something  of  this  idea.  They  had,  but  they 
were  not  possessed  with  it ;  and  to  feel  it  enough  to 
make  the  world  feel  it,  it  was  necessary  to  be  possessed 
with  it.  It  is  not  sufficient  to  have  been  visited  by 
such  an  idea  at  times,  to  have  had  it  forced  occasion- 
ally on  one's  mind  by  the  teaching  of  experience. 
No  :  he  that  hath  the  bride  is  the  bridegroom;'*'  the  idea 
belongs  to  him  who  has  most  loved  it.  Common 
prudence  can  say  :  Honesty  is  the  best  policy  ; 
morality  can  say :  To  conduct  belongs  happiness.  But 
Israel  and  the  Bible  are  filled  with  religious  joy,  and 
rise  higher  and  say  :  "  Righteousness  is  salvation  J" — 
and  this  is  what  is  inspiring.  "  I  have  stuck  unto  thy 
testimonies  !  Eternal,  what  love  have  I  unto  thy  law ! 
all  the  day  long  is  my  study  in  it.  Thy  testimonies 
have  I  claimed  as  mine  heritage  for  ever,  and  why  ? 
they  are  the  very  joy  of  my  heart  !"z  This  is  why  the 
testimonies  of  righteousness  are  Israel's  heritage  for 
ever,  because  they  were  the  very  joy  of  his  heart. 
Herein  Israel  stood  alone,  the  friend  and  elect  of  the 
Eternal.  "  He  showeth  his  word  unto  Jacob,  his 
statutes  and  ordinances  unto  Israel.  He  hath  not 
dealt  so  with  any  nation,  neither  have  the  heathen 
knowledge  of  his  laws."3 

Poor  Israel !  poor  ancient  people  /4  It  was  revealed 
to  thee  that  righteousness  is  salvation ;  the  question, 
what  righteousness  is,  was  thy  stumbling-stone.  Seer 
of  the  vision  of  peace,  that  yet  couldst  not  see  the 

1  Johniii.  29.  2  Ps.  cxix.  31,  97,  111. 

3  Ps.  cxlvii.  19,  20.  4  Is.  xliv.  7. 


XT.]  GREATNESS  OF  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT.          327 

things  which  belong  unto  thy  peace !  with  that  blind- 
ness thy  solitary  pre-eminence  ended,  and  the  new 
Israel,  made  up  out  of  all  nations  and  languages,  took 
thy  room.  But,  thy  visitation  complete,  thy  temple 
in  ruins,  thy  reign  over,  thine  office  done,  thy  children 
dispersed,  thy  teeth  drawn,  thy  shekels  of  silver  and 
gold  plundered,  did  there  yet  stay  with  thee  any 
remembrance  of  thy  primitive  intuition,  simple  and 
sublime,  of  the  Eternal  that  loveth  righteousness  ? 
Perhaps  not ;  the  Talmudists  were  fully  as  well  able 
to  efface  it  as  the  Fathers.  But  if  there  did,  what 
punishment  can  have  been  to  thee  like  the  punishment 
of  watching  the  performances  of  the  Aryan  genius 
upon  the  foundation  which  thou  hadst  given  to  it  1 — 
to  behold  this  terrible  and  triumphant  philosopher, 
with  his  monotheistic  idea  and  his  metaphysical 
Trinity,  "  neither  confounding  the  Persons  nor 
dividing  the  Substance?"  Like  the  torture  for  a  poet 
to  hear  people  laying  down  the  law  about  poetry  who 
have  not  the  sense  what  poetry  is, — a  sense  with 
which  he  was  born  !  like  the  affliction  to  a  man  of 
science  to  hear  people  talk  of  things  as  proved  who 
do  not  even  know  what  constitutes  a  fact !  From  the 
Council  of  Nicaea  down  to  Convocation  and  our  two 
bishops  "doing  something"  for  the  Godhead  of  the 
Eternal  Son,  what  must  thou  have  had  to  suffer ! 


CHAPTER  XII. 

THE  TRUE  GREATNESS   OF   CHRISTIANITY. 

No  ;  the  mystery  hidden  from  ages  and  generations,1 
which  none  of  the  rulers  of  this  world  knew,2  the 
mystery  revealed  finally  by  Jesus  Christ  and  rejected 
by  the  Jews,  was  not  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  nor 
anything  speculative.  It  was  the  method  and  the 
secret  of  Jesus.  Jesus  did  not  change  the  object  for 
men, — righteousness.  He  made  clear  what  it  was, 
and  that  it  was  this  : — his  method  and  his  secret. 

This  was  the  mystery,  and  the  Apostles  had  still  the 
consciousness  that  it  was.  To  "  learn  Christ,"  to  "be 
taught  the  truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus,"  was  not,  with  them, 
to  acquire  certain  tenets  about  One  God  in  Trinity 
and  Trinity  in  Unity.  It  was,  "to  be  renewed  in  the 
spirit  of  your  mind,  and  to  put  on  the  new  man  which 
after  God  is  created  in  righteousness  and  true  holiness."3 
And  this  exactly  amounts  to  the  method  and  secret 
of  Jesus. 

For  Catholic  and  for  Protestant  theology  alike,  this 
consciousness,  which  the  Apostles  had  still  preserved, 
was  lost.  For  Catholic  and  Protestant  theology  alike, 

1  Col.  i.  26.  2  1  Cor.  ii.  8.  3  Eph.  iv.  23,  24. 


CHAP,  xii.]    TRUE  GREATNESS  OF  CHRISTIANITY.       329 

the  truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus,  the  mystery  revealed  in 
Christ,  meant  something  totally  different  from  his 
method  and  secret.  But  they  recognised,  and  indeed 
the  thing  was  so  plain  that  they  could  not  well  miss 
it,  they  recognised  that  on  all  Christians  the  method 
and  secret  of  Jesus  were  enjoined.  So  to  this  extent 
the  method  and  secret  of  Jesus  were  preached  and 
had  their  effect.  To  this  extent  true  Christianity  has 
been  known,  and  to  the  extent  before  stated  it  has 
been  neglected.  Now,  as  we  say  that  the  truth  and 
grandeur  of  the  Old  Testament  most  comes  out 
experimentally, — that  is,  by  the  whole  course  of  the 
world  establishing  it,  and  confuting  what  is  opposed 
to  it — so  it  is  with  Christianity.  Its  grandeur  and 
truth  are  far  best  brought  out  experimentally;  and  the 
thing  is,  to  make  people  see  this. 

But  there  is  this  difference  between  the  religion  of 
the  Old  Testament  and  Christianity.  Of  the  religion 
of  the  Old  Testament  we  can  pretty  well  see  to  the 
end,  we  can  trace  fully  enough  the  experimental  proof 
of  it  in  history.  But  of  Christianity  the  future  is  as  yet 
almost  unknown.  For  that  the  world  cannot  get  on 
without  righteousness  we  have  the  clear  experience, 
and  a  grand  and  admirable  experience  it  is.  But 
what  the  world  will  become  by  the  thorough  use  of 
that  which  is  really  righteousness,  the  method  and 
the  secret  and  the  sweet  reasonableness  of  Jesus,  we 
have  as  yet  hardly  any  experience  at  all.  Therefore 
we,  who  in  this  essay  limit  ourselves  to  experience, 
shall  speak  here  of  Christianity  and  of  its  greatness 
very  soberly.  Yet  Christianity  is  really  all  the 


330  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

grander  for  that  very  reason  which  makes  us  speak 
about  it  in  this  sober  manner, — that  it  has  such  an 
immense  development  still  before  it,  and  that  it  has 
as  yet  so  little  shown  all  it  contains,  all  it  can  do. 
Indeed,  that  Christianity  has  already  done  so  much 
as  it  has,  is  a  witness  to  it ;  and  that  it  has  not  yet 
done  more,  is  a  witness  to  it  too.  Let  us  observe  how 
this  is  so. 

II. 

Few  things  are  more  melancholy  than  to  observe 
Christian  apologists  taunting  the  Jews  with  the  failure 
of  Hebraism  to  fulfil  the  splendid  promises  of  prophecy, 
and  Jewish  apologists  taunting  Christendom  with  the 
like  failure  on  the  part  of  Christianity.  Neither  has 
yet  fulfilled  them,  or  could  yet  have  fulfilled  them. 
Certainly  the  restoration  by  Cyrus,  the  Second  Temple, 
the  Maccabean  victories,  are  hardly  more  than  the 
shadows  of  a  fulfilment  of  the  magnificent  words  : 
"  The  sons  of  them  that  afflicted  thee  shall  come 
bending  unto  thee,  and  all  they  that  despised  thee 
shall  bow  themselves  down  at  the  soles  of  thy  feet ; 
thy  gates  shall  not  be  shut  day  nor  night,  that  men 
may  bring  unto  thee  the  treasures  of  the  Gentiles, 
and  that  their  kings  may  be  brought." l  The  Chris- 
tian isation  of  all  the  leading  nations  of  the  world  is, 
it  is  said,  a  much  better  fulfilment  of  that  promise. 
Be  it  so.  Yet  does  Christendom,  let  us  ask,  offer 
more  than  a  shadow  of  the  fulfilment  of  this:  "Violence 
shall  no  more  be  heard  in  thy  land ;  the  vile  person 
1  Is.  lx.  14,  11. 


xii.]  TRUE  GREATNESS  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  331 

shall  no  more  be  called  liberal,  nor  the  churl  bountiful ; 
thy  people  shall  be  all  righteous  ;  they  shall  all  know 
me,  from  the  least  to  the  greatest ;  I  will  put  my  law 
in  their  inward  parts,  and  write  it  in  their  hearts ; 
the  Eternal  shall  be  thine  everlasting  light,  and  the 
days  of  thy  mourning  shall  be  ended?"1  Manifestly 
it  does  not.  Yet  the  two  promises  hang  together; 
one  of  them  is  not  truly  fulfilled  unless  the  other  is. 

The  promises  were  made  to  righteousness,  with  all 
which  the  idea  of  righteousness  involves.  And  it 
involves  Christianity.  They  were  made  on  the  imme- 
diate prospect  of  a  small  triumph  for  righteousness, 
the  restoration  of  the  Jews  after  the  captivity  in 
Babylon  ;  but  they  are  not  satisfied  by  that  triumph. 
The  prevalence  of  the  profession  of  Christianity  is  a 
larger  triumph ;  yet  in  itself  it  hardly  satisfies  them 
any  better.  What  satisfies  them  is  the  prevailing  of 
that  which  righteousness  really  is,  and  nothing  else 
satisfies  them.  Now,  Christianity  is  that  which 
righteousness  really  is.  Therefore,  if  something  called 
Christianity  prevails,  and  yet  the  promises  are  not 
satisfied,  the  inference  is  that  this  something  is  not 
that  which  righteousness  really  is,  and  therefore  not 
really  Christianity.  And  as  the  course  of  the  world 
is  perpetually  establishing  the  pre-eminence  of  right- 
eousness, and  confounding  whatever  denies  this  pre- 
eminence, so,  too,  the  course  of  the  world  is  for  ever 
establishing  what  righteousness  really  is, — that  is  to 
say,  true  Christianity, — and  confounding  whatever 
pretends  to  be  true  Christianity  and  is  not. 
1  Is.  Ix.  18  ;  xxxii.  5  ;  Ix.  21  ;  Jer.  xxxi.  33,  34  ;  Is.  Ix.  20. 


332  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

Now,  just  as  the  constitution  of  things  turned  out 
to  be  against  the  great  unrighteous  kingdoms  of  the 
heathen  world,  and  against  all  the  brilliant  Ishmaels 
we  have  seen  since,  so  the  constitution  of  things  turns 
out  to  be  against  all  false  presentations  of  Christianity, 
such  as  the  theology  of  the  Fathers  or  Protestant 
theology.  They  do  not  work  successfully,  they  do 
not  reach  the  aim,  they  do  not  bring  the  world  to  the 
fruition  of  the  promises  made  to  righteousness.  And 
the  reason  is,  because  they  substitute  for  what  is 
really  righteousness  something  else.  Catholic  dogma 
or  Lutheran  justification  by  faith  they  substitute  for 
the  method  and  secret  of  Jesus. 
.  Nevertheless,  as  all  Christian  Churches  do  recom- 
mend the  method  and  the  secret  of  Jesus,  though  not 
in  the  right  way  or  in  the  right  eminency,  still  the 
world  is  made  partially  acquainted  with  what  right- 
eousness really  is,  and  the  doctrine  produces  some 
effect,  although  the  full  effect  is  much  thwarted  and 
deadened  by  the  false  way  in  which  the  doctrine  is 
presented.  Still,  the  effect  produced  is  great.  For 
instance,  the  sum  of  individual  happiness  that  has 
been  caused  by  Christianity  is,  any  one  can  see,  enor- 
mous. But  let  us  take  the  effect  of  Christianity  on 
the  world.  And  if  we  look  at  the  thing  closely,  we 
shall  find  that  its  effect  has  been  this  :  Christianity 
has  brought  the  world,  or  at  any  rate  all  the  leading 
part  of  the  world,  to  regard  righteousness  as  only  the  Jews 
regarded  it  before  the  coming  of  Christ.  The  world  has 
accepted,  so  far  as  profession  goes,  that  original 
revelation  made  to  Israel :  the  pre-eminence  of  righteous- 


xii.]  TRUE  GREATNESS  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  333 

ness.  The  infinite  truth  and  attractiveness  of  the 
method  and  secret  and  character  of  Jesus,  however 
falsely  surrounded,  have  prevailed  with  the  world  so 
far  as  this.  And  this  is  an  immense  gain,  and  a  signal 
witness  to  Christianity.  The  world  does  homage  to 
the  pre-eminence  of  righteousness  ;  and  here  we  have 
one  of  those  fulfilments  of  prophecy  which  are  so  real 
and  so  glorious.  "  Glorious  things  are  spoken  of  thee, 
O  City  of  God  !  I  will  make  mention  of  Rahab  and 
Babylon  as  of  them  that  know  me !  behold,  the 
Philistines  also,  and  Tyre,  with  the  Ethiopians,— 
these  were  born  there  I  And  of  Zion  it  shall  be 
reported  :  This  and  that  man  was  bom  in  her  ! — and 
the  Most  High  shall  stablish  her.  The  Eternal  shall 
count,  when  he  writeth  up  the  people  :  This  man  was 
born  there!"1  That  prophecy  is  at  the  present  day 
abundantly  fulfilled.  The  world's  chief  nations  have 
now  all  come,  we  see,  to  reckon  and  profess  themselves 
born  in  Zion, — born,  that  is,  in  the  religion  of  Zion, 
the  city  of  righteousness. 

But  there  remains  the  question  :  what  righteousness 
really  is.  The  method  and  secret  and  sweet  reason- 
ableness of  Jesus.  But  the  world  does  not  see  this  ; 
for  it  puts,  as  righteousness,  something  else  first  and 
this  second.  So  that  here,  too,  as  to  seeing  what 
righteousness  really  is,  the  world  now  is  much  in  the 
same  position  in  which  the  Jews,  when  Jesus  Christ 
came,  were.  It  is  often  said  :  If  Jesus  Christ  came 
now,  his  religion  would  be  rejected.  And  this  is  only 
another  way  of  saying  that  the  world  now,  as  the 
1  Psalm  Ixxxvii.  3-6. 


334  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

Jewish  people  formerly,  has  something  which  thwarts 
and  confuses  its  perception  of  what  righteousness 
really  is.  It  is  so;  and  the  thwarting  cause  is  the 
same  now  as  then  : — the  dogmatic  system  current,  the 
so-called  orthodox  theology.  This  prevents  now,  as 
it  did  then,  that  which  righteousness  really  is,  the 
method  and  secret  of  Jesus,  from  being  rightly  received, 
from  operating  fully,  and  from  accomplishing  its  due 
effect. 

So  true  is  this,  that  we  have  only  to  look  at  our 
own  community  to  see  the  almost  precise  parallel,  so 
far  as  religion  is  concerned,  to  the  state  of  things 
presented  in  Judaea  when  Jesus  Christ  came.  The 
multitudes  are  the  same  everywhere.  The  chief  priests 
and  elders  of  the  people,  and  the  scribes,  are  our 
bishops  and  dogmatists,  with  their  pseudo-science  of 
learned  theology  blinding  their  eyes,  and  always, — 
whenever  simple  souls  are  disposed  to  think  that  the 
method  and  secret  of  Jesus  is  true  religion,  and  that 
the  Great  Personal  First  Cause  and  the  Godhead  of 
the  Eternal  Son  have  nothing  to  do  with  it, — eager  to 
cry  out :  This  people  that  knoweth  not  the  law  are  cursed  ! 1 
The  Pharisees,  with  their  genuine  concern  for  religion, 
but  total  want  of  perception  of  what  religion  really  is, 
and  by  their  temper,  attitude,  and  aims  doing  their 
best  to  make  religion  impossible,  are  the  Protestant 
Dissenters.  The  Sadducees  are  our  friends  the  philo- 
sophical Liberals,  who  believe  neither  in  angel  nor 
spirit  but  in  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer.  Even  the  Eoman 
governor  has  his  close  parallel  in  our  celebrated 
1  John  vii.  49. 


xii.]  TKUE  GREATNESS  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  335 

aristocracy,  with  its  superficial  good  sense  and  good 
nature,  its  complete  inaptitude  for  ideas,  its  profound 
helplessness  in  presence  of  all  great  spiritual  move- 
ments. And  the  result  is,  that  the  splendid  promises 
to  righteousness  made  by  the  Hebrew  prophets,  claimed 
by  the  Jews  as  the  property  of  Judaism,  claimed  by 
us  as  the  property  of  Christianity,  are  almost  as 
ludicrously  inapplicable  to  our  religious  state  now,  as 
to  theirs  then. 

And  this,  we  say,  is  again  a  signal  witness  to  Chris- 
tianity. Jesus  Christ  came  to  reveal  what  righteousness, 
to  which  the  promises  belong,  really  is ;  and  so  long 
as  this,  though  shown  by  Jesus,  is  not  recognised  by 
us,  we  may  call  ourselves  Christendom  as  much  as  we 
please,  the  true  character  of  a  Christendom  will  be 
wanting  to  us,  because  the  great  promises  of  prophecy 
will  be  still  without  their  fulfilment.  Nothing  will 
do  except  righteousness ;  and  no  other  conception  of 
righteousness  will  do,  except  Jesus  Christ's  conception 
of  it : — his  method  and  his  secret. 


III. 

Yes,  the  grandeur  of  Christianity  and  the  impos- 
ing and  impressive  attestation  of  it,  if  we  could  but 
worthily  bring  the  thing  out,  is  here  :  in  that 
immense  experimental  proof  of  the  necessity  of  it, 
which  the  whole  course  of  the  world  has  steadily 
accumulated,  and  indicates  to  us  as  still  continuing 
and  extending.  Men  will  not  admit  assumptions, 
the  popular  legend  they  call  a  fairy-tale,  the  meta- 


336  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

physical  demonstrations  do  not  demonstrate,  nothing 
but  experimental  proof  will  go  down ;  and  here  is  an 
experimental  proof  which  never  fails,  and  which  at 
the  same  time  is  infinitely  grander,  by  the  vastness 
of  its  scale,  the  scope  of  its  duration,  the  gravity  of 
its  results,  than  the  machinery  of  the  popular  fairy- 
tale. Walking  on  the  water,  multiplying  loaves, 
raising  corpses,  a  heavenly  judge  appearing  with 
trumpets  in  the  clouds  while  we  are  yet  alive, — what 
is  this  compared  to  the  real  experience  Offered  as 
witness  to  us  by  Christianity  1  It  is  like  the  differ- 
ence between  the  grandeur  of  an  extravaganza  and 
the  grandeur  of  the  sea  or  the  sky, — immense  objects 
which  dwarf  us,  but  where  we  are  in  contact  with 
reality,  and  a  reality  of  which  we  can  gradually, 
though  very  slowly,  trace  the  laws. 

The  more  we  trace  the  real  law  of  Christianity's 
action,  the  grander  it  will  seem.  Certainly  in  the 
Gospels  there  is  plenty  of  matter  to  call  out  our  feel- 
ings. But  perhaps  this  has  been  somewhat  over-used 
and  mis-used,  applied,  as  it  has  been,  chiefly  so  as  to 
be  subservient  to  what  we  call  the  fairy-tale  of  the 
three  Lord  Shaftesburys, — a  story  which  we  do  not 
deny  to  have,  like  other  products  of  the  popular 
imagination,  its  pathos  and  power,  but  which  we 
have  seen  to  be  no  solid  foundation  to  rest  our  faith 
in  the  Bible  on.  And  perhaps,  too,  we  do  wrong, 
and  inevitably  fall  into  what  is  artificial  and  unnatural, 
in  labouring  so  much  to  produce  in  ourselves  now,  as 
the  one  impulse  determining  us  to  use  the  method 
and  secret  of  Jesus,  that  conscious  ardent  sensation  of 


xii.]  TRUE  GREATNESS  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  337 

personal  love  to  him,  which  we  find  the  first  genera- 
tion of  Christians  feeling  and  professing,  and  which 
was  the  natural  motor  for  those  who  were  with  him 
or  near  him,  and,  so  to  speak,  touched  him ;  and  in 
making  this  our  first  object.  At  any  rate,  misem- 
ployed as  this  motor  has  often  been,  it  might  be  well 
to  forego  or  at  least  suspend  its  use  for  ourselves  and 
others  for  a  time,  and  to  fix  our  minds  exclusively  on 
the  recommendation  given  to  the  method  and  secret 
of  Jesus  by  their  being  true,  and  by  the  whole  course 
of  things  proving  this. 

Now,  just  as  the  best  recommendation  of  the  oracle 
committed  to  Israel,  Righteousness  is  salvation,  is  found 
in  our  more  and  more  discovering,  in  our  own  history 
and  hi  the  whole  history  of  the  world,  that  it  is  so,  so 
we  shall  find  it  to  be  with  the  method  and  secret  of 
Jesus.  That  this  is  the  righteousness  which  is  salva- 
tion, that  the  method  and  secret  of  Jesus,  that  is  to 
say,  conscience  and  self-renouncement,  are  righteous- 
ness, bring  about  the  kingdom  of  God  or  the  reign  of 
righteousness, — this,  which  is  the  Christian  revelation 
and  what  Jesus  came  to  establish,  is  best  impressed, 
for  the  present  at  any  rate,  by  experiencing  and 
showing  again  and  again,  in  ourselves  and  in  the 
course  of  the  world,  that  it  is  so  ;  that  this  is  the 
righteousness  which  is  saving,  and  that  there  is  none 
other.  Let  us  but  well  observe  what  comes,  in  our- 
selves or  the  world,  of  trying  any  other,  of  not  being 
convinced  that  this  is  righteousness,  and  this  only; 
and  we  shall  find  ourselves  more  and  more,  as  by 
irresistible  viewless  hands,  caught  and  drawn  towards 

VOL.  v.  z 


338  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

the  Christian  revelation,  and  made  to  desire  more 
and  more  to  serve  it.  No  proof  can  be  so  solid  as 
this  experimental  proof;  and  none  again,  can  be  so 
grand,  so  fitted  to  fill  us  with  awe,  admiration,  and 
gratitude.  So  that  feeling  and  emotion  will  now  well 
come  in  after  it,  though  not  before  it.  For  the  whole 
course  of  human  things  is  really,  according  to  this 
experience,  leading  up  to  the  fulfilment  of  Jesus 
Christ's  promise  to  his  disciples  :  Fear  not,  little  flock  ! 
for  it  is  your  Father's  good  pleasure  to  give  you  the  king- 
dom.'1 And  thus  that  comes  out,  after  all,  to  be  true, 
which  St.  Paul  announced  prematurely  to  the  first 
generation  of  Christians  :  WTien  Christ,  who  is  our  life, 
shall  appear,  then  shall  ye  also  appear  ivith  him  in  glory.'2' 
And  the  author  of  the  Apocalypse,  in  like  manner, 
foretold  :  The  kingdom  of  the  world  is  become  the  kingdom 
of  our  Lord  and  his  Christ.3  The  kingdom  of  the  Lord 
the  world  is  already  become,  by  its  chief  nations 
professing  the  religion  of  righteousness.  The  kingdom 
of  Christ  the  world  will  have  to  become,  it  is  on  its 
way  to  become,  because  the  profession  of  righteous- 
ness, except  as  Jesus  Christ  interpreted  righteousness, 
is  vain.  We  can  see  the  process,  we  are  ourselves 
part  of  it,  and  can  in  our  measure  help  forward  or 
keep  back  its  completion. 

When  the  prophet,  indeed,  says  to  Israel,  on  the 
point  of  being  restored  by  Cyrus  :  "  The  nation  and 
kingdom  that  mil  not  serve  thee  shall  perish ! " 4  the 

1  Luke  xii.  32.  2  Col.  iii.  4. 

•  3  Rev.  xi.  15.     The  Alexandrian  manuscript  is  followed. 
4  Isaiah  Ix.  12. 


xrr.]  TRUE  GREATNESS  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  339 

promise,  applied  literally,  fails.  But  extended  to 
that  idea  of  righteousness,  of  which  Israel  was  the 
depositary  and  in  which  the  real  life  of  Israel  lay,  the 
promise  is  true,  and  we  can  see  it  fulfilled.  In  like 
manner,  when  the  Apostle  says  to  the  Corinthians  or 
to  the  Colossians,  instructed  that  the  second  advent 
would  come  in  their  own  generation :  "  We  must  all 
appear  before  the  Judgment-seat  of  Christ/"1 — "  Wlien 
Christ,  who  is  our  life,  shall  appear,  then  shall  ye  also 
aiypear  with  him  in  glory  !  "  2  the  promise,  applied  liter- 
ally as  the  Apostle  meant  it  and  his  converts  under- 
stood it,  fails.  But  divested  of  this  Aberglaube  or 
extra-belief,  it  is  true;  if  indeed  the  world  can  be 
shown, — and  it  can, — to  be  moving  necessarily 
towards  the  triumph  of  that  Christ  in  whom  the 
Corinthian  and  Colossian  disciples  lived,  and  whose 
triumph  is  the  triumph  of  all  his  disciples  also. 

IV. 

Let  us  keep  hold  of  this  same  experimental  process 
in  dealing  with  the  promise  of  immortality  ;  although 
here,  if  anywhere,  Aberglaube,  extra -belief,  hope, 
anticipation,  may  well  be  permitted  to  come  in.  Still, 
what  we  need  for  our  foundation  is  not  Aberglaube, 
but  Glaube;  not  extra-belief  in  what  is  beyond  the 
range  of  possible  experience,  but  belief  in  what  can 
and  should  be  known  to  be  true. 

By  what  futilities  the  demonstration  of  our  im- 
mortality may  be  attempted,  is  to  be  seen  in  Plato's 
1  2  Cor.  v.  10.  •-  Col.  iii.  4. 


340  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

Phcedo.  Man's  natural  desire  for  continuance,  how- 
ever little  it  may  be  worth  as  a  scientific  proof  of  our 
immortality,  is  at  least  a  proof  a  thousand  times 
stronger  than  any  such  demonstration.  The  want  of 
solidity  in  such  argument  is  so  palpable,  that  one 
scarcely  cares  to  turn  a  steady  regard  upon  it  at  all. 
And  even  of  the  common  Christian  conception  of 
immortality  the  want  of  solidity  is,  perhaps,  most 
conclusively  shown,  by  the  impossibility  of  so  framing 
it  as  that  it  will  at  all  support  a  steady  regard  turned 
upon  it.  In  our  English  popular  religion,  for  in- 
stance, the  common  conception  of  a  future  state  of 
bliss  is  just  that  of  the  Vision  of  Mirza :  "  Persons 
dressed  in  glorious  habits  with  garlands  on  their 
heads,  passing  among  the  trees,  lying  down  by  the 
fountains,  or  resting  on  beds  of  flowers,  amid  a  con- 
fused harmony  of  singing  birds,  falling  waters,  human 
voices,  and  musical  instruments."  Or,  even,  with 
many,  it  is  that  of  a  kind  of  perfected  middle-class 
home,  with  labour  ended,  the  table  spread,  goodness 
all  around,  the  lost  ones  restored,  hymnody  incessant. 
"  Poor  fragments  all  of  this  low  earth ! "  Keble  might 
well  say.  That  this  conception  of  immortality  cannot 
possibly  be  true,  we  feel,  the  moment  we  consider  it 
seriously.  And  yet  who  can  devise  any  conception 
of  a  future  state  of  bliss,  which  shall  bear  close 
examination  better  1 

Here,  again,  it  is  far  best  to  take  what  is  experi- 
mentally true,  and  nothing  else,  as  our  foundation, 
and  afterwards  to  let  hope  and  aspiration  grow,  if  so 
it  may  be,  out  of  this.  Israel  had  said  :  "  In  the 


xii.]  TRUE  GREATNESS  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  341 

way  of  righteousness  is  life,  and  in  the  pathway 
thereof  there  is  no  death." !  He  had  said :  "  The 
righteous  hath  hope  in  his  death."  2  He  had  cried  to 
his  Eternal  that  loveth  righteousness:  "Thou  wilt  not 
leave  my  soul  in  the  grave,  neither  wilt  thou  suffer 
thy  faithful  servant  to  see  corruption  !  thou  wilt  show 
me  the  path  of  life  !  " 3  And  by  a  kind  of  short  cut 
to  the  conclusion  thus  laid  down,  the  Jews  constructed 
their  fairy-tale  of  an  advent,  judgment,  and  resurrec- 
tion, as  we  find  it  in  the  Book  of  Daniel.  Jesus, 
again,  had  said :  "  If  a  man  keep  my  word,  he  shall 
never  see  death." 4  And  by  a  kind  of  short  cut  to 
the  conclusion  thus  laid  down,  Christians  constructed 
their  fairy-tale  of  the  second  advent,  the  resurrection 
of  the  body,  the  New  Jerusalem.  But  instead  of 
fairy-tales,  let  us  begin,  at  least,  with  certainties. 

And  a  certainty  is  the  sense  of  life,  of  being  truly 
alive,  which  accompanies  righteousness.  If  this  ex- 
perimental sense  does  not  rise  to  be  stronger  in  us, 
does  not  rise  to  the  sense  of  being  inextinguishable, 
that  is  probably  because  our  experience  of  righteous- 
ness is  really  so  very  small.  Here,  therefore,  we 
may  well  permit  ourselves  to  trust  Jesus,  whose 
practice  and  intuition  both  of  them  went,  in  these 
matters,  so  far  deeper  than  ours.  At  any  rate,  we 
have  in  our  experience  this  strong  sense  of  life  from 
righteousness  to  start  with ;  capable  of  being  developed, 
apparently,  by  progress  in  righteousness  into  something 
immeasurably  stronger.  Here  is  the  true  basis  for 

1  Prov.  xii.  28.  2  Prov.  xiv.  32. 

3  Psalm  xvi.  10,  11.  *  John  viii.  51. 


342  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.  [CHAP. 

all  religious  aspiration  after  immortality.  And  it  is 
an  experimental  basis  •  and  therefore,  as  to  grandeur, 
it  is  again,  when  compared  with  the  popular  Aberglaube, 
grand  with  all  the  superior  grandeur,  on  a  subject  of 
the  highest  seriousness,  of  reality  over  fantasy. 

At  present,  the  fantasy  hides  the  grandeur  of  the 
reality.  But  when  all  the  Aberglaube  of  the  second 
advent,  with  its  signs  in  the  sky,  sounding  trumpets 
and  opening  graves,  is  cleared  away,  then  and  not 
till  then  will  come  out  the  profound  truth  and 
grandeur  of  words  of  Jesus  like  these  :  "  The  hour  is 
coming,  when  they  that  are  in  the  graves  shall  hear 
the  voice  of  the  Son  of  God ;  and  they  that  hear  shall 
fa."1 

V. 

Finally,  and  above  all.  As,  for  the  right  inculca- 
tion of  righteousness,  we  need  the  inspiring  words  of 
Israel's  love  for  it,  that  is,  we  need  the  Bible;  so,  for  the 
right  inculcation  of  the  method  and  secret  of  Jesus, 
we  need  the  epieikeia,  the  sweet  reasonableness,  of 
Jesus.  That  is,  in  other  words  again,  we  need  the 
Bible;  for  only  through  the  Bible -records  of  Jesus 
can  we  get  at  his  epieikeia.  Even  in  these  records,  it 
is  and  can  be  presented  but  imperfectly;  but  only 
by  reading  and  re-reading  the  Bible  can  we  get  at  it 
at  all. 

Now,  greatly  as  the  failure,  from  the  stress  laid 
upon  the  pseudo- science  of  Church -dogma,  to  lay 
enough  stress  upon  the  method  and  secret  of  Jesus, 
1  John  v.  25. 


XIF.]  TRUE  GREATNESS  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  343 

has  kept  Christianity  back  from  showing  itself  in  its 
full  power,  it  is  probable  that  the  failure  to  apply  to 
the  method  and  secret  of  Jesus,  so  far  as  these  have 
at  any  rate  been  used,  his  sweet  reasonableness  or 
epieikeia,  has  kept  it  back  even  more.  And  the 
infinite  of  the  religion  of  Jesus, — its  immense  capacity 
for  ceaseless  progress  and  farther  development, — lies 
principally,  perhaps,  in  the  line  of  extricating  more 
and  more  his  sweet  reasonableness,  and  applying  it 
to  his  method  and  secret.  For  it  is  obvious  from 
experience,  how  much  our  use  of  Christ's  method 
and  secret  requires  to  be  guided  and  governed  by  his 
epieikeia.  Indeed,  without  this,  his  method  and  secret 
seem  often  of  no  use  at  all.  The  Flagellants  imagined 
that  they  were  employing  his  secret;  and  the  Dis- 
senters, with  their  "  spirit  of  watchful  jealousy," 
imagine  that  they  are  employing  his  method.  To  be 
sure,  Mr.  Bradlaugh  imagines  that  the  method  and 
the  secret  of  Jesus,  nay,  and  Jesus  himself  too,  are 
all  baneful,  and  that  the  sooner  we  get  rid  of  them 
all,  the  better.  So  far,  then,  the  Flagellants  and  the 
Dissenters  are  in  advance  of  Mr.  Bradlaugh  :  they 
value  Christianity,  and  they  profess  the  method  and 
secret  of  Jesus.  But  they  employ  them  so  ill,  that 
one  is  tempted  to  say  they  might  nearly  as  well  be 
without  them.  And  this  is  because  they  are  wholly 
without  his  sweet  reasonableness,  or  epieikeia.  Now 
this  can  only  be  got,  first,  by  knowing  that  it  is  in 
the  Bible,  and  looking  for  it  there ;  and  then,  by 
reading  and  re-reading  the  Gospels  continually,  until 
we  catch  something  of  it. 


344  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA.        [CHAP.  Xil. 

This,  again,  is  an  experimental  process.  That  the 
epieikeia  or  sweet  reasonableness  of  Jesus  may  be 
brought  to  govern  our  use  of  his  method  and  secret, 
and  that  it  can  and  will  make  our  use  of  his  method 
and  secret  quite  a  different  thing,  is  proved  by  our 
actually  finding  this  to  be  so  when  we  try.  So  that  the 
culmination  of  Christian  righteousness  in  the  applying, 
to  guide  our  use  of  the  method  and  secret  of  Jesus, 
his  sweet  reasonableness  or  epieikeia,  is  proved  from 
experience.  We  end,  therefore,  as  we  began, — by 
experience.  And  the  whole  series  of  experiences,  of 
which  the  survey  is  thus  completed,  rests,  primarily, 
upon  one  fundamental  fact, — itself,  eminently,  a  fact 
of  experience  :  the  necessity  of  righteousness. 


CONCLUSION. 

Bur  now,  after  all  we  have  been  saying  of  the  pre- 
eminency  of  righteousness,  we  remember  what  we  have 
said  formerly  in  praise  of  culture  and  of  Hellenism, 
and  against  too  much  Hebraism,  too  exclusive  a 
pursuit  of  the  "  one  thing  needful,"  as  people  call  it. 
And  we  cannot  help  wondering  whether  we  shall  not 
be  reproached  with  inconsistency,  and  told  that  we 
ought  at  least  to  sing,  as  the  Greeks  said,  &  palinode;  and 
whether  it  may  not  really  be  so,  and  we  ought. 
And,  certainly,  if  we  had  ever  said  that  Hellenism 
was  three -fourths  of  human  life,  and  conduct  or 
righteousness  but  one -fourth,  a  palinode,  as  well  as 
an  unmusical  man  may,  we  would  sing.  But  we 
have  never  said  it.  In  praising  culture,  we  have 
never  denied  that  conduct,  not  culture,  is  three-fourths 
of  human  life. 

Only  it  certainly  appears,  when  the  thing  is 
examined,  that  conduct  comes  to  have  relations  of  a 
very  close  kind  with  culture.  And  the  reason  seems 
to  be  given  by  some  words  of  our  Bible,  which, 
though  they  may  not  be  exactly  the  right  rendering 
of  the  original  in  that  place,  yet  in  themselves  they 
explain  the  connection  of  culture  with  conduct  very 


346  LITERATUKE  AND  DOGMA. 

well.  "I  have  seen  the  travail,"  says  the  Preacher, 
"which  God  hath  given  to  the  sons  of  men  to  be 
exercised  in  it ;  he  hath  made  everything  beautiful  in 
his  time ;  also,  he  hath  set  the  world  in  their  heart." l 
He  hath  set  the  world  in  their  heart  ! — that  is  why  art 
and  science,  and  what  we  call  culture,  are  necessary. 
They  may  be  only  one-fourth  of  man's  life,  but  they 
are  there,  as  well  as  the  three-fourths  which  conduct 
occupies.  "He  hath  set  the  world  in  their  heart." 
And,  really,  the  reason  which  we  hence  gather  for 
the  close  connection  between  culture  and  conduct,  is 
so  simple  and  natural  that  we  are  almost  ashamed  to 
give  it;  but  we  have  offered  so  many  simple  and 
natural  explanations  in  place  of  the  abstruse  ones 
which  are  current,  that  our  hesitation  is  foolish. 

Let  us  suggest  then,  that,  having  this  one -fourth 
of  their  nature  concerned  with  art  and  science,  men 
cannot  but  somehow  employ  it.  If  they  think  that 
the  three -fourths  of  their  nature  concerned  with 
conduct  are  the  whole  of  their  nature,  and  that  this 
is  all  they  have  to  attend  to,  still  the  neglected  one- 
fourth  is  there,  it  ferments,  it  breaks  wildly  out,  it 
employs  itself  all  at  random  and  amiss.  And  hence,  no 
doubt,  our  hymns  and  our  dogmatic  theology.  Of  our 
hymns  we  shall  say  a  word  presently;  but  what  is 
our  dogmatic  theology,  except  the  mis-attribution  to 
the  Bible, — the  Book  of  conduct, — of  a  science  and 
an  abstruse  metaphysic  which  is  not  there,  because 
our  theologians  have  in  themselves  a  faculty  for 
science,  for  it  makes  one-eighth  of  them  1  But  they 
1  Ecclesiastes  iii.  10,  11. 


CONCLUSION.  347 

do  not  employ  it  on  its  proper  objects ;  so  it  invades 
the  Bible,  and  tries  to  make  the  Bible  what  it  is  not, 
and  to  put  into  it  what  is  not  there.  And  this 
prevents  their  attending  enough  to  what  is  in  the 
Bible,  and  makes  them  battle  for  what  is  not  in  the 
Bible,  but  they  have  put  it  there ; — battle  for  it  in  a 
manner  clean  contrary,  often,  to  the  teaching  of  the 
Bible.  So  has  arisen,  for  instance,  all  religious 
persecution.  And  thus,  we  say,  has  conduct  itself 
become  impaired. 

So  that  conduct  is  impaired  by  the  want  of  science 
and  culture ;  and  our  theologians  really  suffer,  not 
from  having  too  much  science,  but  from  having  too 
little.  Whereas,  if  they  had  turned  their  faculty  for 
abstruse  reasoning  towards  the  proper  objects,  and 
had  given  themselves,  in  addition,  a  wide  and  large 
acquaintance  with  the  productions  of  the  human 
spirit  and  with  men's  way  of  thinking  and  of  using 
words,  then,  on  the  one  hand,  they  would  not  have 
been  tempted  to  mis-employ  on  the  Bible  their  faculty 
for  abstruse  reasoning,  for  they  would  have  had  plenty 
of  other  exercise  for  it;  and,  on  the  other  hand, 
they  would  have  escaped  that  literary  inexperience 
which  now  makes  them  fancy  that  the  Bible -lan- 
guage is  scientific,  and  fit  matter  for  the  application 
of  their  powers  of  abstruse  reasoning  to  it,  when  it 
is  no  such  thing.  Then  they  would  have  seen  the 
fallacy  of  confounding  the  obscurity  attaching  to  the 
idea  of  God, — that  vast  not  ourselves  which  transcends 
us, — with  the  obscurity  attaching  to  the  idea  of  their 
Trinity,  a  confused  metaphysical  speculation  which 


348  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

puzzles  us.  The  one,  they  would  have  perceived,  is 
the  obscurity  of  the  immeasurable  depth  of  air,  the 
other  is  the  obscurity  of  a  fog.  And  fog,  they  would 
have  known,  has  no  proper  place  in  our  conceptions 
of  God ;  since  whatever  our  minds  can  possess  of 
God  they  know  clearly,  for  no  man,  as  Goethe  says, 
possesses  what  he  does  not  understand;  but  they 
can  possess  of  Him  but  a  very  little.  All  this  our 
dogmatic  theologians  would  have  known,  if  they 
had  had  more  science  and  more  literature.  And 
therefore,  simple  as  the  Bible  and  conduct  are,  still 
culture  seems  to  be  required  for  them, — required  to 
prevent  our  mis-handling  and  sophisticating  them. 


II. 

Culture,  then,  and  literature  are  required,  even  in 
the  interest  of  religion  itself,  and  when,  taking  nothing 
but  conduct  into  account,  we  make  God,  as  Israel  made 
him,  to  be  simply  and  solely  "the  Eternal  Power,  not 
ourselves,  that  makes  for  righteousness"  But  we  are 
not  to  forget,  that,  grand  as  this  conception  of  God  is, 
and  well  as  it  meets  the  wants  of  far  the  largest  part 
of  our  being,  of  three-fourths  of  it,  yet  there  is  one- 
fourth  of  our  being  of  which  it  does  not  strictly  meet  the 
wants,  the  part  which  is  concerned  with  art  and  science ; 
or,  in  other  words,  with  beauty  and  exact  knowledge. 

For  the  total  man,  therefore,  the  truer  conception 
of  God  is  as  "  the  Eternal  Power,  not  ourselves,  by 
which  all  things  fulfil  the  law  of  their  being.;"  by 
which,  therefore,  we  fulfil  the  law  of  our  being  so  far 


CONCLUSION.  349 

as  our  being  is  aesthetic  and  intellective,  as  well  as  so 
far  as  it  is  moral.  And  it  is  evident,  as  we  have  before 
now  remarked,  that  in  this  wider  sense  God  is  dis- 
pleased and  disserved  by  many  things  which  cannot 
be  said,  except  by  putting  a  strain  upon  words,  to 
displease  and  disserve  him  as  the  God  of  righteousness. 
He  is  displeased  and  disserved  by  men  uttering  such 
doggerel  hymns  as  :  Sing  glory,  glory ,  glory  to  the  great 
God  Triune  !  and :  Out  of  my  stony  griefs  Bethels  I'll 
raise  !  and :  My  Jesus  to  know,  and  feel  his  blood  flow, 
'tis  life  everlasting,  'tis  heaven  below  !  or  by  theologians 
uttering  such  pseudo-science  as  their  blessed  truth  that 
the  God  of  the  universe  is  a  PERSON.  But  it  would  be 
harsh  to  give,  at  present,  this  turn  to  our  employment 
of  the  phrases,  pleasing  God,  displeasing  God. 

And  yet,  as  man  makes  progress,  we  shall  surely 
come  to  doing  this.  For,  the  clearer  our  conceptions 
in  science  and  art  become,  the  more  will  they  assimi- 
late themselves  to  the  conceptions  of  duty  in  conduct, 
will  become  practically  stringent  like  rules  of  conduct, 
and  will  invite  the  same  sort  of  language  in  dealing 
with  them.  And  so  far  let  us  venture  to  poach  on 
M.  Emile  Burnouf's  manor,  and  to  talk  about  the 
Aryan  genius,  as  to  say,  that  the  love  of  science,  and 
the  energy  and  honesty  in  the  pursuit  of  science,  in 
the  best  of  the  Aryan  races,  do  seem  to  correspond  in 
a  remarkable  way  to  the  love  of  conduct,  and  the  energy 
and  honesty  in  the  pursuit  of  conduct,  in  the  best  of 
the  Semitic.  To  treat  science  with  the  same  kind  of 
seriousness  as  conduct,  does  seem,  therefore,  to  be  a 
not  impossible  thing  for  the  Aryan  genius  to  come  to. 


350  LITERATURE  AND  DOGMA. 

But  for  all  this,  however,  man  is  hardly  yet  ripe. 
For  our  race,  as  we  see  it  now  and  as  ourselves  we 
form  a  part  of  it,  the  true  God  is  and  must  be  pre- 
eminently the  God  of  the  Bible,  the  Eternal  who  makes 
for  righteousness,  from  whom  Jesus  came  forth,  and 
whose  Spirit  governs  the  course  of  humanity.  Only, 
we  see  that  even  for  apprehending  this  God  of  the 
Bible  rightly  and  not  wrongly,  letters,  which  so  many 
people  now  disparage,  and  what  we  call,  in  general, 
culture,  seem  to  be  necessary. 

And  meanwhile,  to  prevent  our  at  all  pluming  our- 
selves on  having  apprehended  what  so  much  baffles 
our  dogmatic  friends  (although  indeed  it  is  not  so 
much  we  who  apprehend  it  as  the  "  Zeit-Geist "  who 
discovers  it  to  us),  what  a  chastening  and  wholesome 
reflection  for  us  it  is,  that  it  is  only  to  our  natural 
inferiority  to  these  ingenious  men  that  we  are  indebted 
for  our  advantage  over  them  !  For  while  they  were 
born  with  talents  for  metaphysical  speculation  and 
abstruse  reasoning,  we  are  so  notoriously  deficient  in 
everything  of  that  kind,  that  our  adversaries  often 
taunt  us  with  it,  and  have  held  us  up  to  public  ridicule 
as  being  "  without  a  system  of  philosophy  based  on 
principles  interdependent,  subordinate,  and  coherent." 
And  so  we  were  thrown  on  letters ;  thrown  upon  read- 
ing this  and  that, — which  anybody  can  do, — and  thus 
gradually  getting  a  notion  of  the  history  of  the  human 
mind,  which  enables  us  (the  "  Zeit-Geist "  favouring) 
to  correct,  in  reading  the  Bible,  some  of  the  mistakes 
into  which  men  of  more  metaphysical  talents  than 
literary  experience  have  fallen.  Cripples  in  like 


CONCLUSION.  351 

manner  have  been  known,  now  and  then,  to  be  cast 
by  their  very  infirmity  upon  some  mental  pursuit 
which  lias  turned  out  happily  for  them  ;  and  a  good 
fortune  of  this  kind  has  perhaps  been  ours. 

But  we  do  not  forget  that  this  good  fortune  we 
owe  to  our  weakness,  and  that  the  natural  superiority 
remains  with  our  adversaries.  And  some  day,  perhaps, 
the  nature  of  God  may  be  as  well  known  as  the  nature 
of  a  cone  or  a  triangle  ;  and  then  our  two  bishops  may 
deduce  its  properties  with  success,  and  make  their 
brilliant  logical  play  about  it, — rightly,  instead  of  as 
now,  wrongly ;  and  will  resume  all  their  advantage. 
But  this  will  hardly  be  in  our  time.  So  that  the 
superiority  of  this  pair  of  distinguished  metaphysicians 
will  never  perhaps,  after  all,  be  of  any  real  advantage 
to  them,  but  they  will  be  deluded  and  bemocked  by 
it  until  they  die. 


T.NLJ   OF  VOLUME  V. 


I'rintfdby  R.  &  R.  CLARK,  Edinburgh. 


v*  USE 
14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

RENEWALS  ONLY— TEL.  NO.  642-3405 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 
Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 


EC  9     196894 

jjjv 

LD  21A-38m-5,'68 
(J401slO)476B 

General  Library 
University  of  California 
Berkeley 

VC155 


nH&mg 


i|fw|^S^M 

^^•WM 


